1. Oracle Solaris Cluster: Overview

The Solaris Cluster 3.2 11/09 software is the twelfth release of the product since Sun Cluster 3.0 was announced in December 2000. Oracle Solaris Cluster is the culmination of 14 years of development work stemming from the Solaris Multicomputer project that was started in Sun Labs in 1995.

This chapter begins by discussing the purpose and value of the Solaris Cluster software. It continues by comparing clustering for high availability (HA) and scalability with high performance computing (HPC) and fault-tolerant systems. It then contrasts HA with the demands of disaster recovery. After describing the benefits of using a third-party clustering framework, such as the Solaris Cluster software, the chapter concludes by explaining how a cluster is created from its constituent parts: servers, storage, and networks.