1.1 Administering Sun Cluster Overview

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 Sun Cluster is stable and operational.

Before undertaking an administrative task, you should have familiarized yourself with the planning information in the Sun Cluster 3.0 12/01 Software Installation Guide and the glossary in the Sun Cluster 3.0 12/01 Concepts document. 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 3.0 12/01 Data Services Installation and Configuration Guide.

• Service tasks, such as adding or repairing storage or network hardware. These tasks are described in the Sun Cluster 3.0 12/01 Hardware Guide.

For the most part, you can perform Sun Cluster administration tasks while the cluster is operational, with the impact on cluster operation limited to a single node. For those procedures that require that the entire cluster be shut down, schedule downtime for off hours, when there is minimal impact on the system. If you plan to take down the cluster or a cluster node, notify users ahead of time.