Re: to cluster or not? what's best solution for 2-node HA?
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On 07/25/08 16:32, Bob wrote:
> Here's what I want:
> I have a vmware server running on etch, hosting 4 VM's.
> I want these 4 VM's to be hosted in such a way, that should anything
> fail on 1 VM host, there is another providing seamless service. I want
> to do this with the 2 pc's I already have, each with 2 NIC's, and no
> other hardware.
>
> My basic question - what's the best solution to accomplish this?
>
> Here's what I've looked at:
> drbd/HA (heartbeat) - allows you to raid1 a disk partition between 2
> pc's over ethernet
> issues: in the default primary/secondary failover config, if
> primary fails, there is some period of time (even if only seconds),
> required for the secondary to become primary - I can only assume this
> would mean rebooting all the VM's.
> however - you can run drbd in a primary/primary config - this
> sounds like what I want. But it sounds like I need a clustering files
> system to do this like GFS. After countless hours researching this,
> I'm still not sure how to do it - do I need GFS? OCFS? NBD?
>
> Now drbd isn't really a cluster, it's just raid1-ing 2 pc's - this
> could be all I need.
> But - would a REAL cluster be a better solution? I believe a cluster
> could provide load balancing, or at least optimized use of all
> available hard disk heads. Although, if drbd needs GFS, then in fact,
> doesn't this become a real cluster?
>
> What would a clustering solution look like?
> which is the best filesystem to use - GFS/OCFS ?
> would drbd still be needed if GFS is used?
>
> Any ideas, experiences, help - greatly appreciated!
A *real* cluster would entail running OpenVMS (since clustering is
built deep into the OS) on either HP Integrity servers or used
AlphaServers, and either buying little SAN boxes or using HBVS
(Host-Based Volume Shadowing, which is similar to llvm, but has been
in enterprise use for 25 years) on the disks.
With this, the OS will allow you to use both nodes concurrently on
the same data files, and in case of a node crash, the other node
will clean things up so that you don't have any corrupted data.
Next best would be Tru64 (a.k.a. OSF/1) Unix on AlphaServers,
because much of the clustering technology from VMS was ported to Tru64.
- --
Ron Johnson, Jr.
Jefferson LA USA
"Kittens give Morbo gas. In lighter news, the city of New New
York is doomed."
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