Availability

In conjunction with the release of OpenSolaris 2009.06, Sun delivers Open HA Cluster 2009.06, with simple, thoroughly tested, and production-ready high availability cluster features, making the OpenSolaris OS an ideal environment for running mission-critical application services with full confidence:

• • Simplified cluster configuration designed for lower cost of entry with minimized hardware requirements. Leveraging OpenSolaris's latest features, Project Crossbow and COMSTAR, the new cluster framework can now run on a single physical network interface and local-only storage, leading to reduced deployment costs.
  
  
• • Highly available open source based solutions ready to deploy on OpenSolaris with full production support from Sun. Open HA Cluster 2009.06 provides built-in high availability (or HA, for short) for popular open source applications such as Apache, MySQL and more. IT professionals are now able to develop and run custom-built applications and solutions on OpenSolaris with the same high service level and reliability that they demand from older deployment environments.
  
  

High Availability for OpenSolaris

OpenSolaris enables developers to develop, debug, and globally deploy applications faster, with built-in innovative features and with full production support from Sun.

Hardware and software failures are inevitable in any environment. For high availability, OpenSolaris has several features designed to avert downtime, or automate the recovery process to minimize both downtime and cost. Predictive Self Healing, featuring Solaris Fault Manager and Service Management Facility, provides intrinsic availability features.

Now, with Open HA Cluster 2009.06, we are delivering next generation Solaris Cluster features that use hardware redundancy and advanced monitoring of all components of the systems to protect against hardware faults, raising the bar for standards of high availability that an OS should provide and making OpenSolaris an enterprise-ready mission-critical deployment platform.

Advanced Clustering Features

OpenSolaris' clustering capabilities are based on the next generation development of Solaris Cluster, a proven high quality, thoroughly tested technology, which has been serving customers for over 10 years . It adds to OpenSolaris the essential high availability features such as:

• • Heartbeat, Disk fencing, Quorum (disk, server, software-based), Extensive monitoring (server, network, disk path, quorum, applications, ...)
  
  
• • Multiple file systems made highly available through managed failover: UFS, NFS, ZFS
  
  
• • Rich application framework for integration of application services with failover or scalable behavior, resource management (start/stop, dependencies, ..), and toolkit
  
  
• • High Availability for virtualization technologies such as Solaris Containers and Logical Domains
  
  
• • Diagnosability with a configuration checker
  
  
• • Easy to use object-oriented CLI and CLI wizards for configuration
  
  

Minimized Hardware

Now use local storage as an alternative to shared storage. Integrating the innovative OpenSolaris features of Solaris ZFS and COMSTAR to provide a highly available ZFS file system, the local storage of two cluster servers is made accessible through iSCSI, mirrored through ZFS, and reaches HA through the next generation Solaris Cluster file system failover feature. The constraint of having multiple network interface cards for each cluster server is also removed. Leveraging the virtual networking features from project Crossbow that is included in the latest OpenSolaris release, the cluster private interconnect and the public network can share the same physical network adapter.

Using local storage instead of shared storage with a single NIC card, instead of two, minimizes the cost of a base cluster configuration and simplifies cabling. These new options effectively lower the point of entry for a high quality HA solution.

Open source Web stack support

OpenSolaris clustering includes built-in integration components (aka agents) for the following applications: Glassfish, Apache Webserver, Apache Tomcat, MySQL, DNS, NFS, DHCP, Kerberos, Samba, Solaris Containers

These agents enable increased availability for these applications running on OpenSolaris without requiring any additional development or scripting: the agents are part of the cluster software and are covered by the support services offerings. Easy integration and improved service level makes OpenSolaris and the next generation Solaris Clustering the perfect combination as a platform to deploy solutions including these applications.

Modular OpenSolaris IPS-based packaging

Leveraging the new OpenSolaris packaging system, all of the new next generation Solaris Cluster features are available as Open HA Cluster 2009.06 in the Sun package repository under https://pkg.sun.com/opensolaris/ha-cluster/

This flexible packaging system makes it possible to download only the required components. Users may choose between a complete download or the download of a minimal set that can combine with individually choosen optional components (agents, wizards, localization, etc.). This method greatly improves the user experience with a simplified and flexible delivery.

Full production level support

Both Standard and Premium support offerings are available for deployment of Open HA Cluster 2009.06 with OpenSolaris 2009.06 with following configurations:

Supported servers:

• • SPARC: Sun Enterprise M3000, Sun Enterprise T5120
• • X64 : Sun Fire X4170, Sun Fire X4140

Supported Storage:

• • Sun StorageTek 2540 Array
• • Sun Storage J4400 Array (SAS)

Supported cluster configuration:

• • 2 node cluster

System Requirements

Hardware System Requirements

For every cluster node:

• • Minimum of 1 GB of physical RAM (2GB typical)
• • Minimum of 6GB of available hard drive space

Actual physical memory and hard drive requirements would be determined by the applications installed. Consult the application's documentation or contact the application vendor to calculate additional memory and hard drive requirements.

Supported Platforms

Although the Open HA Cluster 2009.06 software can be used on the broad range of platforms currently on the OpenSolaris Hardware Compatibility List, full support services are currently only available for a selected list of servers. Contact your Sun services representative for details.

Supported applications and topology

Although a large set of agents are available in the HA Cluster open source community, Sun currently offers support for only a selected list of agents. Contact your Sun services representative for information on qualifying other agents for support.

Supported Operating Systems

• • OpenSolaris 2009.06

Documentation

For complete documentation check the documentation pages on: http://opensolaris.org/os/community/ha-clusters/ohac/Documentation/OHACdocs/. Release notes are available on http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ha-clusters/ohac/Documentation/OHACdocs/relnotes/.

Get It!

Open HA Cluster is available for download on http://pkg.sun.com/