This chapter provides the following information about administering a global cluster and a zone cluster, and includes procedures for using Oracle Solaris Cluster administration tools:
All procedures in this guide are for use on the Oracle Solaris 11 Operating System.
A global cluster is composed of one or more global-cluster nodes. A global cluster can also include solaris or solaris10 branded non-global zones that are not nodes but rather are configured with the HA for Zones data service.
A zone cluster is composed of one or more non-global zones of the solaris, solaris10, or labeled brand that are set with the cluster attribute. No other brand type is permitted in a zone cluster. A labeled branded zone cluster is only for use with the Trusted Extensions feature of Oracle Solaris software. You create a zone cluster by using the clzonecluster command, the clsetup utility, or the Oracle Solaris Cluster Manager browser interface.
You can run supported services on the zone cluster similar to a global cluster, with the isolation that is provided by Oracle Solaris zones. A zone cluster depends on, and therefore requires, a global cluster. A global cluster does not contain a zone cluster. A zone cluster has, at most, one zone-cluster node on a machine. A zone-cluster node continues to operate only as long as the global-cluster node on the same machine continues to operate. If a global-cluster node on a machine fails, all zone-cluster nodes on that machine fail as well. For general information about zone clusters, see Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.3 Concepts Guide.