Cluster Services for OES

Cluster Services for OES is a key component of Open Enterprise Server that helps you manage all the resources on your Storage Area Network (SAN). Cluster Services for OES is integrated with Open Enterprise Server, and together these products enable you to:

• Deliver nonstop access to data and resources
• Scale to meet expanding storage requirements
• Reduce storage management costs

Cluster Services for OES greatly simplifies SAN management. For example, you can manage resources on iSCSI or Fibre Channel SANs from any location, using any Java-enabled web browser. In addition, Cluster Services for OES is instrumental in building high-availability solutions. These solutions—particularly when coupled with a SAN solution—provide users and services with secure, uninterrupted access to your organization's critical data and applications.

When you deploy solutions based on Cluster Services for OES, your network resources are always available. Servers work together as groups that are called "clusters." If any servers need scheduled maintenance, or if one fails, the other servers in the cluster automatically and seamlessly absorb their resources and workloads, maintaining service and application availability.

Application servers and users alike have 24/7 access to SAN-based storage, in part because SAN-management solutions fully support web-based and traditional applications on the cluster. In addition to this access, users and applications also receive essential storage resources via workstations running client software for NetWare®, Linux, Macintosh, UNIX, web, or Windows platforms.

With Cluster Services for OES, you can easily adjust your storage infrastructure to accommodate business growth. In fact, Cluster Services for OES supports up to 32 servers per cluster, with as many as 32 processors per server. You can add servers to a cluster dynamically—without interrupting users—and simply switch resources to the new servers to provide optimal load balancing across the cluster. Combining these scalable clusters with SAN solutions ensures that users can always access critical resources, and your organization can meet growing business needs.

By deploying Cluster Services for OES, you can significantly reduce the cost of SAN ownership. Cluster Services for OES and NSS offer several ways to boost SAN efficiency through built-in storage virtualization. For example, you can use fragments of unused disk space in your SAN as if they were a cohesive whole. Open Enterprise Server includes logical volume management integrated with Cluster Services for OES, which offers several ways to boost SAN efficiency through built-in storage virtualization.

An essential component of Open Enterprise Server, Cluster Services for OES integrates with our other tools to provide a comprehensive SAN-management solution. Using this solution, you can do the following:

• Manage SANs and clusters remotely
• Connect up to 32 Open Enterprise Server (NetWare or Linux) servers in a cluster
• Support both iSCSI and Fibre Channel SAN infrastructures
• Pool free disk space to improve efficiency
• Dynamically configure clusters and storage volumes without rebooting (depending on file system used)
• Receive real-time SMTP notifications
• Support failover and failback
• Support fan-out failover (resources fan out to multiple Cluster Server nodes)
• Use Business Continuity Clustering to automate management of site-to-site failover

With a Cluster Services for OES SAN-management solution, your organization can do the following:

• Allow for server maintenance during convenient production hours
• Improve user productivity
• Eliminate downtime for server maintenance
• Create the foundation for site-to-site failover
• Significantly reduce data-storage costs
• Simplify the management of storage and network resources
• Easily scale to accommodate expanding storage requirements
• Ensure nonstop access to network resources

Cluster Services for OES requires you to run Open Enterprise Server (NetWare or Linux) or NetWare 6.5 on each clustered server: you cannot mix two versions of NetWare in a single cluster. In addition, the following network server requirements must be met:

• All clusters must have at least two NetWare 6.5 or Open Enterprise Server (NetWare or Linux) servers, and no more than 32
• All servers in the cluster must be configured with IP and have one card per server that resides on the same IP subnet
• All servers in the cluster must be in the same NetIQ eDirectory tree
• Each server must have one local or non-shared disk device to be used as the root boot volume (SYS on NetWare)

Notes: Clustered storage requires a Fibre Channel or iSCSI SAN infrastructure. Additionally, each server node needs to meet the requirements specified for Open Enterprise Server or NetWare 6.5.