Novell Cluster Services provides high availability for data and services running on OES 2 servers. You can configure up to 32 OES 2 Linux servers in a high-availability cluster, where resources can be dynamically relocated to any server in the cluster. Each cluster resource can be configured to automatically fail over to a preferred server in the event of a failure on the server where it is currently running. In addition, costs are lowered through the consolidation of applications and operations onto a cluster.
Novell Cluster Services allows you to manage a cluster from a single point of control and to adjust resources to meet changing workload requirements (thus, manually “load balance” the cluster). Resources can also be cluster migrated manually to allow you to troubleshoot hardware. For example, you can move applications, Web sites, and so on to other servers in your cluster without waiting for a server to fail. This helps you to reduce unplanned service outages and planned outages for software and hardware maintenance and upgrades.
Novell Cluster Services clusters provide the following benefits over standalone servers:
Increased availability of applications, services, and data
Improved performance
Lower cost of operation
Scalability
Disaster recovery
Data protection
Server consolidation
Storage consolidation