Sun Clusters Ira Pramanick Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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Sun ClustersIra PramanickSun Microsystems,
Inc.

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Outline

• Todays vs. tomorrows clusters
• How they are used today and how this will change
• Characteristics of future clusters
• Clusters as general-purpose platforms
• How they will be delivered
• Suns Full Moon architecture
• Summary conclusions

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Clustering Today

• Mostly for HA
• Little sharing of resources
• Exposed topology
• Hard to use
• Layered on OS
• Reactive Solution

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Clustering Tomorrow
LAN/WAN
Central Console
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Sun Full Moon architecture

• Turns clusters into general-purpose platforms
• Cluster-wide file systems, devices, networking
• Cluster-wide load-balancing and resource
  management
• Integrated solution
• HW, system SW, storage, applications,
  support/service
• Embedded in Solaris 8
• Builds on existing Sun Cluster line
• Sun Cluster 2.2 -gt Sun Cluster 3.0

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Characteristics of tomorrows clusters

• High-availability
• Cluster-wide resource sharing files, devices,
  LAN
• Flexibility Scalability
• Close integration with the OS
• Load-balancing Application management
• Global system management
• Integration of all parts HW, SW, applications,
  support, HA guarantees

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High Availability

• End-to-end application availability
• What matters Applications as seen by network
  clients are highly-available
• Enable Service Level Agreements
• Failures will happen
• SW, HW, operator errors, unplanned maintenance,
  etc.
• Mask failures from applications as much as
  possible
• Mask application failures from clients

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High Availability...

• No single point of failure
• Use multiple components for HA scalability
• Need strong HA foundation integrated into OS
• Node group membership, with quorum
• Well-defined failure boundaries--no shared memory
• Communication integrated with membership
• Storage fencing
• Transparently restartable services

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High Availability...

• Applications are the key
• Most applications are not cluster-aware
• Mask most errors from applications
• Restart when node fails, with no recompile
• Provide support for cluster-aware apps
• Cluster APIs, fast communication
• Disaster recovery
• Campus-separation and geographical data
  replication

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Resource Sharing

• What is important to applications?
• Ability to run on any node in cluster
• Uniform global access to all storage and network
• Standard system APIs
• What to hide?
• Hardware topology, disk interconnect, LAN
  adapters, hardwired physical names

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Resource Sharing...

• What is needed?
• Cluster-wide access to existing file systems,
  volumes, devices, tapes
• Cluster-wide access to LAN/WAN
• Standard OS APIs no application
  rewrite/recompile
• Use SMP model
• Apps run on machine (not CPU 5, board 3, bus 2)
• Logical resource names independent of actual path

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Resource Sharing...

• Cluster-wide location-independent resource access
• Run applications on any node
• Failover/switchover apps to any node
• Global job/work queues, print queues, etc.
• Change/maintain hardware topology without
  affecting applications
• But need not require fully-connected SAN
• Main interconnect can be used through software
  support

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Flexibility

• Business needs change all the time
• Therefore, platform must be flexible
• System must be dynamic -- all done on-line
• Resources can be added and removed
• Dynamic reconfiguration of each node
• Hot-plug in and out of IO, CPUs, memory, storage,
  etc.
• Dynamic reconfiguration between nodes
• More nodes, load-balancing, application
  reconfiguration

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Scalability

• Cluster SMP nodes
• Choose nodes as big as needed to scale
  application
• Need expansion room within nodes too
• Dont use clustering exclusively to scale
  applications
• Interconnect speed slower than backplane speed
• Few cluster-aware applications
• Clustering large number of small nodes is like
  herding chicken

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Close integration with OS

• Currently multi-CPU SMP support in OS
• Does not make sense otherwise
• Next step cluster support in the OS
• Next dimension of OS support across nodes
• Clustering will become part of the OS
• Not a loosely-integrated layer

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Advantages of OS integration

• Ease of use
• Same administration model, commands, installation
• Availability
• Integrated heartbeat, membership, fencing, etc.
• Performance
• In-kernel support, inter-node/process messaging,
  etc.
• Leverage
• All OS features/support available for clustering

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Load-balancing

• Load-balancing done at various levels
• Built-in network load-balancing
• For example, incoming http requests TCP/IP
  bandwidth
• Transactions at middleware level
• Global job queues
• All nodes have access to all storage and network
• Therefore any node can be eligible to perform the
  work

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Resource management

• Cluster-wide resource management
• CPU, network, interconnect, IO bandwidth
• Cluster-wide application priorities
• Global resource requirements guaranteed locally
• Need per-node resource management
• High-availability is not just making sure an
  application is started
• Must guarantee resources to finish job

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Global cluster management

• System management
• Perform administrative functions once
• Maintain same model as single node
• Same tools/commands as base OS--minimize
  retraining
• Hide complexity
• Most administrative operations should not deal
  with HW topology
• But still enable low-level diagnostics and
  management

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A Total Clustering Solution
Applications

Service and Support
HA Guarantee Practice
Integration of all components
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Roadmap

• Sun Cluster 2.2 currently shipping
• Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, Solaris 8 3/00
• 4 nodes
• Year 2000 compliant
• Choice of servers, storage, interconnects,
  topologies, networks
• 10 Km separation
• Sun Cluster 3.0
• External Alpha 6/99, Beta Q1 CY00, GA 2H CY00
• 8 nodes
• Extensive set of new features cluster fs, global
  devices, network load-balancing, new APIs (RGM),
  diskless application failover, SyMON integration

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Wide Range of Applications

• Agents developed, sold, and supported by Sun
• Databases (Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Informix
  XPS), SAP
• Netscape (http, news, mail, LDAP), Lotus Notes
• NFS, DNS, Tivoli
• Sold and supported by 3rd parties
• IBM DB2 and DB2 PE, BEA Tuxedo
• Agents developed and supported by Sun
  Professional Services
• A large list, including many in-house
  applications
• Toolkit for agent development
• Application management API, training, Sun PS
  support

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Full Moon clustering
Dynamic domains
Global file system
Global devices
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Summary

• Clusters as general-purpose platforms
• Shift from reactive to proactive clustering
  solution
• Clusters must be built on a strong foundation
• Embed into a solid operating system
• Full Moon -- bakes clustering technology into
  Solaris
• Make clusters easy to use
• Hide complexity, hardware details
• Must be an integrated solution
• From platform, service/support, to HA guarantees