Strength in number is often enhanced in a big way when those numbers of whatever it is are in close proximity to one another, and there are all sorts of examples of that. There are all sorts of examples of that, and in some of them it’s more about providing shared resources even if the collective aim isn’t the same right across the board. The nature of what people do with Internet connectivity is as varied as the 6-digit number combinations, and it’s only going to keep on growing out from here.
Again, much of that is made possible by shared resources, even if those in possession of the resources may not even be aware their sharing them. It may be in more of an indirect way but the herring in the innermost area of the ball are providing a benefit to the fish on the edge of it even though those fish are most clearly at risk of being eaten and thus protecting them. They create a possibility, and that’s what keeps the herring ball in a constant state of flux as the competition continues without stopping.
This type of strength in numbers can relate to servers too. With the demand for server speed and reliability increasing, there is the need to implement a reliable server cluster for maximum performance. An integrated cluster of multiple servers working in tandem often provides more resilient, consistent, and uninterrupted performance. Here at 4GoodHosting we are a good Canadian web hosting provider that sees the value in relating what goes into decisions in the industry with regard to how you get better performance from your website and in the bigger picture more traction for you online presence.
Better Availability / Lower Costs
Server clusters are conducive to better business service availability while controlling costs at the same time. Learn some of the key benefits that come with utilizing a server cluster. That’s the term for when a group of servers all tied to the same IP address, and providing access to files, printers, messages and emails, or database records. Node is the one given to each server on the cluster, and each node can run independently as it has its own CPU and RAM and either independent or shared data storage.
The foremost argument for server clustering is better uptime through redundancy. In the event a node in the cluster fails, the others have the ability to pick up the slack almost instantly. User access is essentially uninterrupted, and as long as the server cluster was not already substantially under-resourced there the expected user load shouldn’t cause performance shortcomings.
Many different hosting environments will have their own specific benefits attached to server clustering. Server cluster advantages are not exclusive to mission-critical applications, but the one that will extend to all of them is the way they are not subject to a service interruption from a single server node failure.
Traditional or Shared-Nothing
Operating a backup server in the same way has benefits too but there is almost always a significant failure of service while transferring to the backup. In these instances the possibility of data loss is high, and if the server is often not backed up continually the risk of that increases. That is likely the only real detractor point when discussing server clusters, but most organizations will not have large-scale data back up needs of the size that will make this an issue.
The primary key server cluster benefits are always going to be reliability and availability and there are essentially two types of server clustering strategies – the traditional strategy and the shared-nothing strategy.
Traditional server clustering involves multiple redundant server nodes accessing the same shared storage or SAN resource. Server nodes that fail or experiences downtime have the next node picking up the slack immediately, and because it is drawing from the same storage, you shouldn’t expect any data loss to occur.
Shared nothing server clustering involves each node having a completely independent data store, making it into its own hard drive essentially. These drives are generally synchronized at the block level and function identically from moment to moment. Any failure occurring anywhere in the cluster will be immediately remedied by another node taking over in full from its own hard drive.
Security Considerations
Despite the long list of benefits all servers are potentially vulnerable. We’ll conclude our entry here this week by getting right down to what you’d need to know about server cluster security interests and listing out what you should have in place:
- Good firewall
- Updated OS
- Strong authentication procedure
- Physically secured servers
- Strong file system encryptions
There are HPC Storage (high-performance clustered storage) with top of the line hardware in each node enabling the fastest interconnects available. These are ideal, but with some you will need to take all of these security recommendations more into consideration.
