Sun Microsystems Sun Fire V490 - Manual (Page 97)

Chapter 5 System Administration Software 69
About Sun Cluster Software
Sun™ Cluster software lets you connect up to eight Sun servers in a cluster
configuration. A cluster is a group of nodes that are interconnected to work as a
single, highly available and scalable system. A node is a single instance of Solaris
software—it may be running on a standalone server or on a domain within a
standalone server. With Sun Cluster software, you can add or remove nodes while
online, and mix and match servers to meet your specific needs.
Sun Cluster software delivers high availability through automatic fault detection
and recovery, and scalability, ensuring that mission-critical applications and services
are always available when needed.
With Sun Cluster software installed, other nodes in the cluster will automatically
take over and assume the workload when a node goes down. It delivers
predictability and fast recovery capabilities through features such as local
application restart, individual application failover, and local network adapter
failover. Sun Cluster software significantly reduces downtime and increases
productivity by helping to ensure continuous service to all users.
The software lets you run both standard and parallel applications on the same
cluster. It supports the dynamic addition or removal of nodes, and enables Sun
servers and storage products to be clustered together in a variety of configurations.
Existing resources are used more efficiently, resulting in additional cost savings.
Sun Cluster software allows nodes to be separated by up to 10 kilometers. This way,
in the event of a disaster in one location, all mission-critical data and services remain
available from the other unaffected locations.
For More Information
See the documentation supplied with the Sun Cluster software.
About Communicating With the System
To install your system software or to diagnose problems, you need some way to
interact at a low level with the server. The system console is Sun’s facility for doing
this. You use the system console to view messages and issue commands. The system
console is unique—there can be only one per system.