Overview of Administering Sun Cluster

Sun Cluster's highly available environment ensures that critical applications are available to end users. The system administrator's job is to make sure that the Sun Cluster configuration is stable and operational.

Familiarize yourself with the planning information in the Sun Cluster Software Installation Guide for Solaris OS and the Sun Cluster Concepts Guide for Solaris OS before beginning administration tasks. Sun Cluster administration is organized into tasks among the following manuals.

• Standard tasks, used to administer and maintain the cluster on a regular, perhaps daily basis. These tasks are described in this guide.

• Data service tasks, such as installation, configuration, and changing properties. These tasks are described in the Sun Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide for Solaris OS.

• Service tasks, such as adding or repairing storage or network hardware. These tasks are described in the Sun Cluster 3.1 - 3.2 Hardware Administration Manual for Solaris OS.

For the most part, you can perform Sun Cluster administration tasks while the cluster is operational. If you need take a node out of the cluster or even shut down the node, you can so while the rest of the nodes continue cluster operations. For Solaris 10, unless otherwise indicated, Sun Cluster administrative tasks should be performed in the global zone. For those procedures that require the entire cluster to be shut down, schedule downtime outside normal working hours, to impose minimal impact on the system. If you plan to shut down the cluster or a cluster node, notify users in advance.