This section describes three different viewpoints on the SunPlex system and the key concepts and documentation relevant to each viewpoint. These viewpoints come from:
Hardware installation and service personnel
System administrators
Application programmers
To hardware service professionals, the SunPlex system looks like a collection of off-the-shelf hardware that includes servers, networks, and storage. These components are all cabled together so that every component has a backup and no single point of failure exists.
Hardware service people need to understand the following cluster concepts.
Cluster hardware configurations and cabling
Installing and servicing (adding, removing, replacing):
Network interface components (adapters, junctions, cables)
Disk interface cards
Disk arrays
Disk drives
The administrative console and the console access device
Setting up the administrative console and console access device
The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:
The following SunPlex document includes procedures and information associated with hardware service concepts:
Sun Cluster 3.x Hardware Administration Manual for Solaris OS
To the system administrator, the SunPlex system looks like a set of servers (nodes) cabled together, sharing storage devices. The system administrator sees:
Specialized cluster software integrated with Solaris software to monitor the connectivity between cluster nodes
Specialized software that monitors the health of user application programs running on the cluster nodes
Volume management software that sets up and administers disks
Specialized cluster software that enables all nodes to access all storage devices, even those not directly connected to disks
Specialized cluster software that enables files to appear on every node as though they were locally attached to that node
System administrators need to understand the following concepts and processes:
The interaction between the hardware and software components
The general flow of how to install and configure the cluster including:
Installing the Solaris operating environment
Installing and configuring Sun Cluster software
Installing and configuring a volume manager
Installing and configuring application software to be cluster ready
Installing and configuring Sun Cluster data service software
Cluster administrative procedures for adding, removing, replacing, and servicing cluster hardware and software components
Configuration modifications to improve performance
The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:
The following SunPlex documents include procedures and information associated with the system administration concepts:
The SunPlex system provides data services for such applications as Oracle (on SPARC based systems), NFS, DNS, SunTM Java System Web Server (formerly Sun Java System Web Server), Apache Web Server (on SPARC based systems), and Sun Java System Directory Server (formerly Sun Java System Directory Server). Data services are created by configuring an off-the-shelf applications to run under control of the Sun Cluster software. The Sun Cluster software provides configuration files and management methods that start, stop, and monitor the applications. If you need to create a new failover or scalable service, you can use the SunPlex Application Programming Interface (API) and the Data Service Enabling Technologies API (DSET API) to develop the necessary configuration files and management methods that enable its application to run as a data service on the cluster.
Application programmers need to understand the following:
The characteristics of their application to determine whether it can be made to run as a failover or scalable data service.
The Sun Cluster API, DSET API, and the “generic” data service. Programmers need to determine which tool is most suitable for them to use to write programs or scripts to configure their application for the cluster environment.
The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:
The following SunPlex documents include procedures and information associated with the application programmer concepts: