From owner-freebsd-cluster Fri Dec 17 1:36:58 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-cluster@freebsd.org Received: from yta.attmil.ne.jp (yta.attmil.ne.jp [165.76.24.5]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 63C95150BA for ; Fri, 17 Dec 1999 01:36:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tiberius@yta.attmil.ne.jp) Received: from yta.attmil.ne.jp (05.gate1.yokota.attmil.ne.jp [165.76.24.84]) by yta.attmil.ne.jp (8.8.8+Spin/3.6W-CONS(11/09/99)) id SAA09598; Fri, 17 Dec 1999 18:35:55 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <385A040E.6738E411@yta.attmil.ne.jp> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 18:36:14 +0900 From: Robert Hugh Force II X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven Cc: cluster@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Project homepage and definitions References: <19991216155348.C68446@lucifer.bart.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-cluster@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Jeroen, My understanding of High Availability (HA) is that the goal is to provide a fault tolerant system that masks system outages from users so they may have uninterrupted work. HA utilizes automatic scripts to perform failure activities in a reliably reproducible manner and in less time than any manual operation. True fault tolerant computer systems are VERY $$expensive$$ and very complex (Do they actually exist?) so a more accurate term might be near-fault-tolerant. Redundancy is usually used to help eliminate Single Points Of Failure ( SPOF) and clustering is usually an integral part of a HA environment. Clustering involves connecting computers so that the nodes are able to function as one computer as far as the user is concerned. Parallel computing is one possible use for a cluster. These may not be "dictionary definitions" of HA and clustering but I think they are a step in the right direction. Robert "Bob" Force fMFG (former MainFrame Geek) Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven wrote: > Added a few more references. (still sifting through Eivind's list.) > > I am also in the prospect in writing a text on what exactly high > availability and clustering is. > > basically, at least what I know is that: > > high availability is a more sophisticated form of load balancing > > clustering is basically the grouping of stations and the sharing of > processes between those stations. Also parallization plays an important > aspect. > > Comments/changes/additions/deletions/bananas? > > -- > Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven Network- and systemadministrator > bART Internet Services / > Tel: +31 - (0) 10 - 240 39 70 VIA NET.WORKS Netherlands > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-cluster" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-cluster" in the body of the message