Node management in high-availability cluster

Abstract

One embodiment disclosed relates to a method of status generation for a node of a high-availability cluster. A heartbeat signal is sent from the node through a network to the cluster. In addition, a current status of the node is determined, and the status is sent out through a specialized interface to a next node. Another embodiment disclosed relates to a method of cluster-wide management performed per node. A heartbeat input received from the previous node is checked. Furthermore, an up / down status input received from the previous node and a degraded status input received from the previous node are also checked. Another embodiment disclosed relates to a system for of a high-availability cluster. The system includes a general inter-node communication network that is configured to carry signals including heartbeat signals from the nodes. In addition, a separate inter-node communication channel is included for communicating node status signals.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention

[0002] The present disclosure relates generally to computer networks. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to clusters of interconnected computer systems.

[0003] 2. Description of the Background Art

[0004] A high-availability (HA) cluster is a parallel or distributed system that comprises a collection of interconnected computer systems or servers that is used as a single, unified computing unit. Members of a cluster are referred to as nodes or systems. The cluster service is the collection of software on each node that manages cluster-related activity. The cluster service sees all resources as identical objects. Resource may include physical hardware devices, such as disk drives and network cards, or logical items, such as logical disk volumes, TCP / IP addresses, entire applications and databases, among other examples. A group is a collection of resources to be managed as a single unit. Generally, a group conta...

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