Clustering

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Clustering

Continuously growing data volumes and the relevant necessity to store, process, and protect them, causes companies of all types and sizes to thoroughly consider ways of deploying new technologies.

There are different options, but in this article we examine the most reliable and cost-effective solution for today. This option is clustering technology which provides a wide range of highly useful features for business continuity and disaster recovery.

In general, clustering may be defined as the technology of bundling two or more stand-alone computers into a network. This is most often accomplished through an existing LAN in order to get a powerful source of computer processing.

In turn, Computer cluster, means a group of independent computers that operate together as a single system. This guarantees that mission-critical applications, services, and resources are as highly available as possible. Clusters ensure that the parallel processing power of computers is used to its maximum. In case of failure of one or more machines that participate in a cluster, clusters provide business continuity and guarantee access to the availability of the most important applications and services.

There are different types of computer clusters, but let us focus on benefits of a highly-available cluster type. One of the main advantages of high-availability clusters, is the possibility to use standard hardware and software. This makes HA solutions affordable for the sector of small and medium-sized businesses.

There are different types of computer clusters, but let us focus on benefits of a highly-available cluster type. One of the main advantages of high-availability clusters, is the possibility to use standard hardware and software. This makes HA solutions affordable for the sector of small and medium-sized businesses.

A commonly known fact is that IT departments of most enterprises look to find a way to get maximum productivity and avoid large investments. On one hand, enterprises and SMB companies need huge processing power to serve their business critical applications and databases. Conversely, their IT budgets are limited and the processing power of a supercomputer is unattainable for most of them. This is why it becomes a common practice to spend IT budgets to build computer clusters.

The main benefits of clustering:

Cost reduction: While desktop computer processing power and performance has significantly increased in recent years, its price has decreased constantly which makes the clustering technologies more affordable.
Networking improvement: The information is transmitted with a very little delay.
Increase of processing power.
Reduction of planed and unscheduled downtime.
Scalability: It is a fast, easy task to expand computer clusters according to enterprise changing requirements. To do so, it is only necessary to add more nodes to a network.
Availability and fault tolerance: Clusters ensure availability and fault tolerance of a system in case of an entire server failure. In this event, applications and services automatically fail over to another cluster node without a problem to end users.

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