Wednesday, April 28, 2010

What is Clustering?

A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely so that in many respects they form a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and/or availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.
In simple words, a cluster is a group of servers and other resources that act like a single system and enable high availability, high scalability, load balancing and parallel processing.
Clustering can be implemented at different levels of the system, including hardware, operating systems, middleware, systems management and applications. The more layers that incorporate clustering technology to more complex the whole system is to manage.

Types of Clustering:

1. High-Availability Clustering (Failover Clustering): These are implemented primarily for the purpose of improving the availability of services that the cluster provides. They operate by having redundant nodes, which are then used to provide service when system components fail. The most common size for an HA cluster is two nodes, which is the minimum requirement to provide redundancy. HA cluster implementations attempt to use redundancy of cluster components to eliminate single points of failure. The advantage of clustering computers for high availability is seen if one of these computers fails, another computer in the cluster can then assume the workload of the failed computer. Users of the system see no interruption of access.

Read more: Hello Tech Guys

Posted via email from jasper22's posterous