Flexing

Flexing is the ability to add or delete capacity on a logical server farm. N1 Provisioning Server software rapidly and automatically provisions and configures resources. You can apply flexing to address temporary surges in demand or to adjust capacity on a long-term basis. In either case, flexing enables you to employ infrastructure resources more efficiently. The N1 Provisioning Server software provides two types of flexing services:

• Adding and deleting individual servers within a logical server farm

• Adding and deleting server groups through a server group mechanism

You can add or delete servers from an active logical server farm at any time. Servers are added from the Control Center by dragging the server icon into the existing logical server farm design and attaching it to the appropriate subnet. All DNS and DHCP services are automatically configured. Adding an additional server does not require you to reinitiate the farm activation process. You also can delete servers by using the Control Center.

The server group is a unique logical structure supported within N1 Provisioning Server software. Server groups enable rapid flexing of servers by associating a predefined role or image for all servers within the group. All servers in a server group are considered identical and start off with the same software image. This software image is a global image that is replicated for every server within the server group.

When a server group is flexed up, the global image associated with the server group is automatically stored onto each server added to the group. Although you can make changes to individual servers within a server group, those changes will not be reflected in a flex operation unless you have updated the designated global image. When a server group is flexed down, the servers and their associated storage are returned to the resource pool. Server group flexing is done through the Control Center server configuration dialog box.