Three Views of the Oracle Solaris Cluster Software

This section describes three different views of the Oracle Solaris Cluster software and the key concepts and documentation relevant to each view.

These views are typical for the following professionals:

• Hardware installation and service personnel

• System administrators

• Application developers

Hardware Installation and Service View

To hardware service professionals, the Oracle Solaris Cluster software looks like a collection of off-the-shelf hardware that includes servers, network devices/equipment, and storage. These components are all cabled together so that every component has a backup and no single point of failure exists.

Key Concepts – Hardware

Hardware service professionals need to understand the following cluster concepts.

• Cluster hardware configurations and cabling

• Installing and servicing (adding, removing, replacing):

  • Network interface components (adapters, junctions, cables)

  • Host bus adapter

  • Disk arrays

  • Disk drives

  • The administrative console and the console access device

More Hardware Conceptual Information

The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:

• Cluster Nodes

• Multihost Devices

• Local Disks

• Cluster Interconnect

• Public Network Interfaces

• Logging Into the Cluster Remotely

• Administrative Console

• SPARC: Oracle Solaris Cluster Topologies

• x86: Oracle Solaris Cluster Topologies

Oracle Solaris Cluster Documentation for Hardware Professionals

The Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1 Hardware Administration Manual includes procedures and information that are associated with hardware service concepts.

System Administrator View

To the system administrator, the Oracle Solaris Cluster product is a set of cluster nodes that share storage devices.

The system administrator sees software that performs specific tasks:

• Specialized cluster software that is integrated with Oracle Solaris OS software, which forms the high availability framework that monitors the health of the cluster nodes

• Specialized software that monitors the health of user application programs that are running on the cluster nodes

• Optional: Volume management software that sets up and administers disks

• Specialized cluster software that enables all cluster nodes to access all storage devices, even those nodes that are not directly connected to disks

• Specialized cluster software that enables files to appear on every cluster node as though they were locally attached to that node

Key Concepts – System Administration

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 Oracle Solaris Operating System

  • Installing and configuring Oracle Solaris Cluster software

  • Optional: Installing and configuring a volume manager

  • Installing and configuring application software to be cluster ready

  • Installing and configuring Oracle Solaris Cluster data service software

• Cluster administrative procedures for adding, removing, replacing, and servicing cluster hardware and software components

• Configuration modifications to improve performance

More System Administrator Conceptual Information

The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:

• Administrative Interfaces

• Cluster Time

• Campus Clusters

• High-Availability Framework

• Global Devices

• Device Groups

• Global Namespace

• Cluster File Systems

• Disk Path Monitoring

• Quorum and Quorum Devices

• Load Limits

• Data Services

• Using the Cluster Interconnect for Data Service Traffic

• Resources, Resource Groups, and Resource Types

• Support for Oracle Solaris Zones

• Service Management Facility

• System Resource Usage

• Data Service Project Configuration

Oracle Solaris Cluster Documentation for System Administrators

The following Oracle Solaris Cluster documents include procedures and information associated with the system administration concepts:

• Oracle Solaris Cluster Software Installation Guide

• Oracle Solaris Cluster System Administration Guide

• Oracle Solaris Cluster Error Messages Guide

• Oracle Solaris Cluster 4.1 Release Notes

Application Developer View

The Oracle Solaris Cluster software provides data services for web and database applications. Data services are created by configuring off-the-shelf applications to run under control of the Oracle Solaris Cluster software. The Oracle Solaris Cluster software provides configuration files and management methods that start, stop, and monitor the applications. The Oracle Solaris Cluster software provides two kinds of highly available services for applications: failover services and scalable services. For more information, see Key Concepts - Application Development.

If you need to create a new failover or scalable service, you can use the Oracle Solaris Cluster 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. For more information on failover and scalable applications, see Oracle Solaris Cluster System Administration Guide.

Key Concepts – Application Development

Application developers 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 Oracle Solaris Cluster API, DSET API, and the “generic” data service. Developers 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.

• In a failover application, an application runs on one node at a time. If that node fails, the application fails over to another node in the same cluster.

• In a scalable application, an application runs on several nodes to create a single, logical service. If a node that is running a scalable application fails, failover does not occur. The application continues to run on the other nodes. For more information, see Failover Data Services and Scalable Data Services.

More Application Developer Conceptual Information

The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:

• Data Services

• Resources, Resource Groups, and Resource Types

Oracle Solaris Cluster Documentation for Application Developers

The following Oracle Solaris Cluster document includes procedures and information associated with the application developer concepts:

• Oracle Solaris Cluster Data Services Developer’s Guide

• Oracle Solaris Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide