A cluster of Essbase Servers is defined in several ways:
A set of servers on separate computers running replicas of identical Essbase databases
One Essbase Server running replicas of identical applications
A combination of both
Analytic Clusters provide load balancing and failover support so that connections to the cluster are reliable and highly available. Load balancing enables requests to Essbase Servers to be distributed across a cluster of Essbase Servers running identical databases. Failover support detects service interruptions in a cluster, and reroutes requests to other available Essbase Servers in a cluster.
Provider Services can connect to Essbase Server clusters or to standalone Essbase Servers. Java API, XMLA, and Provider Services users connect to Essbase Servers through Provider Services. To an end user, which database is being accessed is transparent. From a user perspective, users connect to a single data source and retrieve data from that source.
In summary, Analytic Clusters enable you to:
Connect to a single Essbase Server instance
Connect to a single Essbase database
Connect to multiple Essbase Server instances
Connect to multiple identical Essbase databases
Support workload balancing
Support failover