Data Services FAQs

Question: Which Oracle Solaris Cluster data services are available?

Answer: The list of supported data services is included in the Oracle Solaris Cluster Release Notes.

Question: Which application versions are supported by Oracle Solaris Cluster data services?

Answer: The list of supported application versions is included in the Oracle Solaris Cluster Release Notes.

Question: Can I write my own data service?

Answer: Yes. See the Chapter 11, DSDL API Functions, in Oracle Solaris Cluster Data Services Developer’s Guide for more information.

Question: When creating network resources, should I specify numeric IP addresses or host names?

Answer: The preferred method for specifying network resources is to use the UNIX host name rather than the numeric IP address.

Question: When creating network resources, what is the difference between using a logical host name (a LogicalHostname resource) or a shared address (a SharedAddress resource)?

Answer: Except in the case of Oracle Solaris Cluster HA for NFS, wherever the documentation recommends the use of a LogicalHostname resource in a Failover mode resource group, a SharedAddress resource or LogicalHostname resource can be used interchangeably. The use of a SharedAddress resource incurs some additional overhead because the cluster networking software is configured for a SharedAddress but not for a LogicalHostname.

The advantage to using a SharedAddress resource is demonstrated when you configure both scalable and failover data services, and want clients to be able to access both services by using the same host name. In this case, the SharedAddress resources along with the failover application resource are contained in one resource group. The scalable service resource is contained in a separate resource group and configured to use the SharedAddress resource. Both the scalable and failover services can then use the same set of host names and addresses that are configured in the SharedAddress resource.