Linux & Clustering 2

[LedZepRock]

Hi

I have posted something like this on the Windows forum, but my prefered OS would be Linux.

Has anybody got any experiance of Clustering blade servers (or anything else) to increase processor power, our current needs are maybe on a single machine, but may grow. What distro should I use (I use SuSE normally) and does it include software (It would never be more that say 5 machines in the cluster), or would I need to purchase some software??? I am not so bothered about redundant machines, more the power increase.

Any hints, tips would be great.

Thanks

 

[eanda10]

I am not that familiar with clustering but i would start my search with RH advanced server or what ever they are calling it today

 

[ady2k]

You can try RH 6.2 and Piranha cluster for http and ftp.
You also can get oscar cluster software.Good Luck...

 

[RACM]

I looked into it a few time. I would try Mandrake 9.1 and install HeartBeat. You'll need serial cables (in addition to being networked). You can set it up and monitor it through webmin.
Of all the clustering solutions, this looks to be the easiest to implement.

 

[fluid11]

We're currently running a Red Hat 7.2 failover cluster using Steeleye's LifeKeeper software. I would highly recommend that you stay as far away as possible from LifeKeeper and any Steeleye products. LifeKeeper is nothing but trouble and has actually brought our server down in the past. In the near future, we're going to replace this set up with a Red Hat Advanced Server cluster. RHAS 2.1 is out now, but RHAS 3 is about to be released so we'll wait for that one.

Red Hat's Cluster Manager only supports a failover cluster.

http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/as/cluster/

RHAS also includes a piece of load balancing software called Piranha.

http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/as/piranha/

ChrisP
RHCE, LPIC-1, CCNA, CNE, MCSE, +10 others

 

[LedZepRock]

Thanks for the info fluid11. Are you using it for load balancing or failover, as I really am only looking for load balancing, whats you views on load balancing, do you get a good speed increase????

Thanks

 

[fluid11]

Currently, with the crappy LifeKeeper software we're using it for failover only. It does data replication in real time so that if the primary server goes down, _supposedly_ the secondary will take over from where the primary left off. I don't trust LifeKeeper's software to actually do this if the primary went down.

When we move to the RHAS Cluster, it will be another failover cluster, except we'll utilize shared storage, instead of doing data replication.

If you want to set up an active-active cluster to speed up the performance of the application, then you'll need to first make sure that your application will even support this configuration. You can't just do an active-active will any ol' app. Think about how file locking works. What happens if two servers try to make changes to the same file at the same time?

Load balancing can be very good in certain situations. A great example is if you have a high volume website serving static content and you want to spread the load across multiple servers.

What exactly do you want to cluster?


ChrisP
RHCE, LPIC-1, CCNA, CNE, MCSE, +10 others

 

[LedZepRock]

I work for a software developer, so it is our product we wish to run....

Basically we just want to be able to run our product on (its a EDI product) a couple of machines (load balancing) and then be able to add more machines in the future to increase its processing power... Our product it multi platform, so I could run this load balancing on either Windows, Linux, Unix or AS400, some of these are not an option (cost, and in AS400's case not enough room in the computer room for like 4 machines ) So I was thinking Windows or Linux, but my pref would be Linux. This is really just thinking ahead, so I have the chance at the moment to play with this.

Thanks again for you information