Sun Cluster Software

Sun Cluster software provides high availability and scalability services for Java ES components and for applications supported by Java ES infrastructure.

A cluster is a set of loosely coupled computers that collectively provides a single client view of services, system resources, and data. Internally, the cluster uses redundant computers, interconnects, data storage, and network interfaces to provide high availability to cluster-based services and data.

Sun Cluster software continuously monitors the health of member nodes and other cluster resources. In case of failure, Sun Cluster software intervenes to initiate failover of the resources it monitors, thereby using the internal redundancy to provide near-continuous access to these resources.

A two-node cluster to support data store services for Messaging Server and Calendar Server is shown in the following figure.

Figure 2–6 Availability Design Using Sun Cluster Nodes

Sun Cluster data service packages (sometimes referred to as Sun Cluster agents) are available for all Java ES system service components. You can also write agents for custom-developed application components.

Because of the control afforded by Sun Cluster software, it can also provide for scalable services. By leveraging a cluster’s global file system and the ability of multiple nodes in a cluster to run infrastructure or application services, increased demand on these services can be balanced among multiple concurrent instances of the services. When properly configured, Sun Cluster software can therefore provide for both high availability and scalability in a distributed enterprise application.

Because of the redundancy necessary to support Sun Cluster environments, inclusion of Sun Cluster in a solution substantially increases the number of computers and network links required in your physical environment.

Unlike the services provided by other Java ES components, Sun Cluster availability services are distributed peer-to-peer services. Sun Cluster software therefore needs to be installed on every computer in a cluster.