The Sun Cluster software provides the following to make applications highly available:
Data services that are supplied as part of the Sun Cluster software
A data service API
A development library API for data services
A “generic” data service
The Sun Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide for Solaris OS describes how to install and configure the data services that are supplied with the Sun Cluster software. The Sun Cluster 3.1 9/04 Software Collection for Solaris OS (SPARC Platform Edition) describes how to instrument other applications to be highly available under the Sun Cluster framework.
The Sun Cluster APIs enable application developers to develop fault monitors and scripts that start and stop data service instances. With these tools, an application can be implemented as a failover or a scalable data service. The Sun Cluster software provides a “generic” data service. Use this generic data service to quickly generate an application's required start and stop methods and to implement the data service as a failover or scalable service.