2.1. General hardware configuration

The ShaoLin HA Cluster allows the administrators to use standard hardware to set up a cluster configuration that will meet your performance, availability, and data integrity needs of applications and users. Users should choose adequate hardware that will meet the capacity and performance requirement of their application.

One of the consideration of choosing hardware for a cluster system is cost. Since you have to buy additional set of hardware for redundancy, the cost of cluster hardware can double your original stand alone server cost plus other additional cluster hardware and peripherals. This means the choice of hardware requirement can greatly affect the total implementation cost of your system.

One restriction on using ShaoLin HA Cluster is the pair of cluster must be binary compatible. Storage and network adapters should be plugged into the same port. It is not restricted to use identical machines, but using identical machines can simplify management and configuration. Storage block devices should have the same device name and numbers and also network adapters should have the same naming space. This is what we make applications and OS look at the clusters as identical hardware. For example, a Pentium III will execute Pentium II binaries without any problems other than performance differences. However, we do suggests users to use identical hardware for both cluster to minimize mistakes and ease of setup.

ShaoLin HA Cluster adds a minimal load to your server. However, it is recommend your hardware have a minimal performance of

• A 400MHz CPU

• 256MB RAM

to run the ShaoLin HA Cluster software smoothly.