Open High Availability (HA) Cluster 2009.06 is available for OpenSolaris, making it the first HA solution for Sun's open source OS. Touted as the next generation clustering software, the Open HA Cluster is based on Solaris Cluster technology and provides users of OpenSolaris minimized hardware requirements for simplified configuration. It features IPS-based packaging for ease in delivery and production level support from Sun.

Sun's servers, storage and networking solutions are tightly coupled in this clustering software. The way the Open HA Cluster works: the servers (nodes) in the cluster communicate through private interconnects. These interconnects carry important cluster information (data as well as a cluster "heartbeat"). This heartbeat lets the servers in the cluster know the health of the other servers within the cluster, ensuring that each server is "alive". If one of the servers goes offline and ceases its heartbeat, the rest of the devices in the cluster isolate the server and "fail-over" any application or data from the failing node to another node. This failover process is done quickly and transparently to the users of the system. By exploiting the redundancy in the cluster, the software ensures the highest levels of availability.

FEATURES AND BENEFITS

High Availability for OpenSolaris

Adds to OpenSolaris HA features such as:

• Heartbeat, Disk fencing, Quorum (disk, server,software-based)
• Extensive monitoring (server, network, disk path, quorum, applications,...)
• Highly available file systems thanks to managed failover: UFS, NFS, ZFS
• Rich application framework for integration of application services with failover or scalable behavior, resource management (start/stop, dependencies, etc.) and agent toolkit
• High Availability for virtualization technologies such as Solaris Container and LDoms
• Diagnosability with a configuration checker
• Easy to use object-oriented CLI and CLI wizards for configuration

Minimized hardware

This means no shared storage and single NIC support, translating into a lower entry point for an HA solution.

• Use of local storage as an alternative to shared storage. Integrating Solaris ZFS and COMSTAR to provide a highly available ZFS file system, the local storage of two cluster servers is made accessible through iSCSI, mirrored through ZFS and reaches HA through the Solaris Cluster file system failover feature.

• Use of single NIC card: Leveraging the virtual networking features from project Crossbow included in the latest OpenSolaris release, the cluster private interconnect and the public network can share the same physical network adapter removing the constraint of having multiple network interface cards for each cluster server.

Open source Web stack support

Includes built-in integration components (aka agents) for Glassfish, Apache Webserver, Apache Tomcat, MySQL, DNS, NFS, DHCP, Kerberos, Samba and Solaris Containers for increased availability for these applications running on OpenSolaris without any additional development or scripting required.

Modular OpenSolaris Image Packaging System (IPS)-based delivery

All of the new Solaris Cluster features are available as Open HA Cluster 2009.06 in the Sun package repository. Users may choose between a complete download or download a minimal set that can combine with individually picked optional components (agents, wizards, localization, etc.)

Full production level support for SPARC and X64 selected servers

Standard and Premium support offerings are available for deployment of Open HA Cluster 2009.06 with OpenSolaris 2009.06 and following hardware configurations:

• Supported servers: SPARC (Sun Enterprise M3000, Sun Enterprise T5120) and X64 (Sun Fire X4170, Sun Fire X4140)

• Supported Storage: Sun StorageTek 2540 Array, Sun Storage J4400 Array (SAS)

• Supported cluster configuration: 2 node cluster

REQUIREMENTS AND SUPPORT

Every cluster node requires a minimum of 1 GB of physical RAM (2GB typical) and 6GB of available hard drive space. Requirements will be determined by the applications chosen to install.

Open HA Cluster 2009.06 is not freely redistributable. It is, however, available free of charge without support for individual, commercial, service provider or research & instructional use. If support is desired, a yearly subscription is available with support fees and right to use included. A valid OpenSolaris subscription license is required for the purchase of an Open HA Cluster subscription.

More Information

Open HA Cluster Downloads

Open HA Cluster 2009.06 Documents Collection

Release Notes

Installation Guide

Open HA Cluster Community Page - OpenSolaris.org

High Availability / Clustering

Solaris Cluster [...read more...]

From the latest issue:

Recent Blog Entries as of March 19, 2010, 3:55 am
Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center Released Suits and Their Countersuits A More Direct Channel Model Planned for Oracle-Sun Oracle, OpenSolaris, and Solaris Flash Storage in Exadata V2 Cuts Query Processing Time Significantly	Sun Storage 7000 2010.Q1 Quality and Features PSA Deploys GlassFish in the Manufacture of Peugeot, Citroën Vehicles Running VirtualBox VMs as Services in Windows 'Solaris 10 ZFS Essentials' Mobile Desktop Grid
Blog RSS Feed