This chapter provides planning information and guidelines for installing a Sun Cluster Geographic Edition configuration. This chapter also describes how to plan the data replication between two clusters.
This chapter contains the following sections:
To successfully install the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software, you must complete the following phases:
Planning your installation
Connecting your hardware
Installing Sun Cluster software
Installing data replication products
Installing and configuring the required software
Installing the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software
Configuring the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software
This installation process progresses from the initial planning phase to the eventual startup of the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software. This guide provides information about phases 1, 6, and 7.
For information about installing Sun Cluster software, see the Sun Cluster Software Installation Guide for Solaris OS.
For information about configuring a cluster after startup, see the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.
This section helps you to plan your hardware for the primary cluster, the secondary cluster, and the inter-cluster communication.
The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition hardware configuration consists of the following elements:
At least two separate clusters that are running the Sun Cluster software with attached data storage.
One of these clusters must be designated the primary cluster.
While you can use a single node cluster at both the primary and backup sites, a single-node cluster offers no internal redundancy. To ensure no single point of failure, you must have a minimum of two nodes in a cluster at the primary site. You can use a single node cluster at the secondary site, as a cost-effective backup solution if the secondary site is used only for backup purposes, and not for running mission critical applications.
Internet connections for inter-cluster management communication between the clusters and for default inter-cluster heartbeats.
Connections for either host-based or storage-based data replication.
Connections for custom heartbeats, if any.
The hardware configurations that Sun Cluster Geographic Edition support are identical to the hardware configurations that the Sun Cluster product supports. For use of the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software with storage-based data replication mechanisms, the cluster hardware configurations are those configurations that support the related storage hardware. Partner clusters must be compatibly configured to support data replication between the clusters. Use of the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition product with Hitachi TrueCopy data replication requires Sun Cluster configurations with Sun StorEdgeTM 9970/9980 Array or Hitachi Lightning 9900 Series storage that supports the Hitachi TrueCopy command interfaces.
Internet access is required between partner clusters. The communication between partner clusters for inter-cluster management operations is through a logical hostname IP address. The default inter-cluster heartbeat module also communicates through a logical hostname address.
A cluster in a Sun Cluster Geographic Edition partnership conforms to the standard configuration rules of a cluster that is running Sun Cluster software.
A cluster that is using the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software with a data replication product is subject to the same standard hardware configuration rules of a cluster that is running the data replication product with Sun Cluster software. For use of the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software with storage-based, data replication mechanisms, the cluster hardware configurations are those configurations that support the related storage hardware. Partner clusters must be compatibly configured to support data replication between clusters.
This section helps you to adapt the configuration of your Sun Cluster software for the installation of the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software. This section also helps you to plan the installation of your data replication software.
The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software must be installed on a cluster that is running the Solaris Operating System and the Sun Cluster software. The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software configuration is identical to the Sun Cluster software configuration.
The following table lists the required software.
Table 1–1 Required Software
A cluster that is using the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software with a data replication product is subject to the standard configuration rules of a cluster that is running the data replication product with Sun Cluster software. Partner clusters must have compatible software configurations to support data replication between the clusters.
The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition product supports the following data replication products:
Sun StorEdge Availability Suite 3.2.1 software
Hitachi TrueCopy software
EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility software
The Sun StorEdge Availability Suite 3.2.1 software is a host-based replication method. This method consists of software installed on a host that controls replication from one server to a secondary server.
The Hitachi TrueCopy and EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility replication use a storage-based method. These methods use replication that is built into the storage hardware. The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software supports Oracle Real Application Clusters with Hitachi TrueCopy software.
If you use Hitachi TrueCopy RAID Manager software or EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility software, the software must be installed on each node of the cluster.
A partnership requires two clusters to be combined into one environment, and one cluster might be a running production system. Therefore, advance planning of resources and resource groups is essential for a successful installation.
The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software requires that resource group names are identical on each partner cluster to avoid resource and resource group name collisions.
You must have all the required IP addresses and hostnames before you begin the installation process. You must set up a number of IP addresses for various Sun Cluster Geographic Edition components, depending on your cluster configuration. Each node in the cluster configuration must have at least one public network connection to the same set of public subnets. You must have an IP address for the cluster name and each cluster node. You might also need additional IP addresses for data replication products. For more information about requirements for configuring data replication, see the following data replication guides:
Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Data Replication Guide for Sun StorEdge Availability Suite
Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Data Replication Guide for Hitachi TrueCopy
Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Data Replication Guide for EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility
See IP Addresses in Sun Cluster Software Installation Guide for Solaris OS for a list of components that require IP addresses. Add these IP addresses to any naming services that are used. Also add these IP addresses to the local /etc/inet/hosts file on each cluster node after you install Solaris software.
A cluster name must be suitable as a hostname because the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software creates the logical hostname by using the cluster name. Therefore, the cluster name must be in the naming system.
Also, cluster names must be unique. For example, if you have a cluster wholly within the domain .france, you can use hostnames like paris and grenoble. However, if you have a cross-domain cluster, you must specify the hostnames with enough qualification to identify the host on the network. You can link paris and munich with hostnames paris.france and munich.germany, and the cluster names remain paris and munich.
You cannot create a partnership between clusters paris.france and paris.texas because of a collision on the cluster name paris.
This section provides guidelines for planning and preparing the following components for Sun Cluster software installation:
Ensure that you have available all necessary license certificates before you begin software installation. Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software does not require a license certificate. However, each node that is installed with Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software must be covered under your Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software license agreement.
For licensing requirements for data replication software and application software, see the installation documentation for those products.
The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software uses the logical hostname of a cluster for inter-cluster management communication and heartbeat communication. The IP address for a cluster name must be available for Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software to wrap a logical hostname around the IP address when the software is started by using the geoadm start command.
You can use the scconf command to find the name of the cluster when you need to verify that the cluster name is suitable for use as a hostname.
To find the name of the cluster, run the following command:
# scconf -p | head -2 |
For more information, see the scconf(1M) man page.