A.0 Comparing Novell Cluster Services for Linux and NetWare

Table A-1 compares the features and capabilities of Novell Cluster Services on Open Enterprise Server (OES) 2015 SP1 and NetWare 6.5 SP8.

Table A-1 Comparison of Novell Cluster Services for Linux and NetWare

Feature or Capability

Cluster Services for Linux

Cluster Services for NetWare

Operating system

OES 2015 SP1

NetWare 6.5 SP8

Two-node cluster with OES license

Yes

Yes

Up to 32 nodes in a single cluster with additional license

Yes

Yes

Guest servers on Xen VMs as cluster nodes

Yes

Yes

Guest servers on KVM VMs as cluster nodes

Yes

Yes

Guest servers on VMware as cluster nodes

Yes

See OES 2015 SP1 Beta: Novell Cluster Services Implementation Guide for VMware.

Yes, where NetWare is supported by the VMware product

Novell Business Continuity Clustering support

BCC 2.0 for OES 11 SP1

BCC 1.1 SP2 for NetWare 6.5 SP8

Administrator users

The administrator user whose credentials you provide during the installation is the cluster administrator.

The tree administrator user is not automatically given rights. Rights must be granted manually. See Configuring Additional Administrators in the OES 2015 SP1 Beta: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.

The administrator user whose credentials you provide during the installation is the cluster administrator. For NetWare, rights are automatically extended to the tree administrator user.

OES Common Proxy User

Supported

Not applicable

NCS_Management Group

Yes

Not applicable

Preferred list for LDAP servers

Yes; in the /etc/opt/novell/ncs/clstrlib.conf file

No

Directory-based cluster configuration

Yes; common schema for NetWare and Linux

Yes; common schema for NetWare and Linux

Directory schema extension during the first Novell Cluster Services installation in a tree

The user who installs the fist instance of Novell Cluster Services in a tree must have schema extension rights.

The schema extension can be performed separately from the Novell Cluster Services installation by a user with schema extension rights. See Extending the eDirectory Schema to Add Cluster Objects in the OES 2015 SP1 Beta: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.

Afterwards, any administrator with sufficient rights can install Novell Cluster Services. See. Assigning Install Rights for Container Administrators or Non-Administrator Users in the OES 2015 SP1 Beta: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.

The user who installs the fist instance of Novell Cluster Services in a tree must have schema extension rights.

Forward migration for Novell Cluster Services

OES 11 SP2 to OES 2015 SP1: Down cluster and rolling cluster upgrade are supported. See Upgrading OES 11 Clusters in the OES 2015 SP1 Beta: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.

OES 2 SP3 to OES 2015 SP1: Down cluster and rolling cluster upgrade are supported.

Special handling is required for Linux POSIX file system cluster resources. See Upgrading Clusters from OES 2 SP3 to OES 2015 in the OES 2015 SP1 Beta: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.

NetWare 6.5 SP7 to NetWare 6.5 SP8: Down cluster and rolling cluster upgrade are supported.

NetWare 6.0 to NetWare 6.5 SP7 or later: Down cluster and rolling cluster upgrade are supported.

NetWare 5.1 to NetWare 6.5 SP7 or later: Only the down cluster upgrade is supported.

Cluster conversion from NetWare to Linux

NetWare 6.5 SP8 to OES 2015 SP1: Down cluster and rolling cluster conversion are supported.

After all nodes have been converted, use the cluster commit command to finalize the conversion.

Not applicable

mixed-mode Linux and NetWare clusters

Supported only for rolling cluster conversions from NetWare to Linux.

Supported only for rolling cluster conversions from NetWare to Linux.

SBD (split-brain detector)

Yes; during the install on the first server in the cluster, or by using the sbdutil after the install and before adding a second node to the cluster.

Yes; during the install on the first server in the cluster.

Mirrored SBD

During the install.

After the install and before adding a second node to the cluster by using the sbdutil and specifying two devices.

Mirroring an existing SBD by using NLVM.

During the install on the first server in the cluster, or by using the sbdutil after the install.

Shared disks

Fibre Channel SAN LUNs

iSCSI SAN LUNs

SCSI disks (shared external drive arrays)

Fibre Channel SAN LUNs

iSCSI SAN LUNs

SCSI disks (shared external drive arrays)

Cluster-aware shared devices

Share devices by using NLVM, NSSMU, or the Storage plug-in to iManager.

Share devices by using NSSMU or the Storage plug-in to iManager.

Requires Novell Storage Services (NSS)

Required to use NLVM and NSSMU to manage devices, and to create NSS pools as cluster resources.

NSS is the default file system on NetWare.

Novell Cluster Services is not supported on NetWare traditional volumes.

Volume manager for NSS pools

Novell Linux Volume Manager NLVM

NetWare Segment Manager

Volume manager for Linux POSIX file systems

Novell Linux Volume Manager NLVM

NetWare Segment Manager

Requires NCP (NetWare Core Protocol)

NCP Server is required for all storage resources that use NCP, including NSS pools, NCP volumes, and Dynamic Storage Technology shadow volume pairs.

NCP is optional for clustered Linux LVM volume groups and volumes.

NCP is the default file access protocol on NetWare.

NSS pools as cluster resources

Yes

See Configuring and Managing Cluster Resources for Shared NSS Pools and Volumes in the OES 2015 SP1 Beta: Novell Cluster Services for Linux Administration Guide.

Shareable for Clustering

Multiple-Server Activation Prevention (MSAP)

Cluster volume broker; Linux kernel module handles NSS pool events.

Yes

See Setting Up Cluster Resources for Novell Cluster Services in the NW6.5 SP8: Novell Cluster Services 1.8.5 Administration Guide.

Shareable for Clustering

Multiple-Server Activation Prevention (MSAP)

Cluster volume broker

Linux POSIX file systems as cluster resources

Yes

See Configuring and Managing Cluster Resources for Shared LVM Volume Groups.

For information about managing resources migrated from OES 2 SP3 to OES 11 or later, see Upgrading and Managing Cluster Resources for Linux POSIX Volumes with CSM Containers.

Not applicable

NCP volumes on Linux POSIX file systems as cluster resources

Yes

See Configuring NCP Volumes with Novell Cluster Services in the OES 2015 SP1 Beta: NCP Server for Linux Administration Guide.

Not applicable

Dynamic Storage Technology shadow volume pairs as cluster resources

Yes; by combining the load and unload scripts for shared NSS pools and managing the pair as a single cluster resource.

See Configuring DST Shadow Volume Pairs with Novell Cluster Services in the OES 2015 SP1: Dynamic Storage Technology Administration Guide.

Not supported by Dynamic Storage Technology.

Xen virtual machines as cluster resources

Yes

See Configuring Novell Cluster Services in a Virtualization Environment.

Not applicable

iManager

Yes

Yes

Clusters plug-in and Storage Management plug-in for iManager

Yes

Yes

My Clusters and My Resources feature of the Clusters plug-in

Yes

Can be used to manage NetWare 6.5 SP8 servers, but cannot be run on NetWare servers.

Cluster-enabling NSS pools by using the Storage plug-in for iManager

Yes

Yes

Cluster-enabling NSS pools by using the NSS Management Utility (NSSMU)

Yes

Yes

Creating cluster enabled NSS pools by using NLVM commands

Yes

Not applicable

Creating cluster enabled LVM volume groups by using NSSMU

Yes

Not applicable

Creating cluster enabled LVM volume groups by using NLVM commands

Yes

Not applicable

Command line interface

Yes; using the terminal console as the root user

Yes; using the terminal console

XML-based API

Yes; same as NetWare except that it uses the /_adminfs path on Linux.

Yes; same as for Linux except that it uses the _admin volume on NetWare.

Load, unload, and monitor scripts

Yes

Script commands differ. Scripts are automatically translated from NetWare commands to Linux commands during the cluster conversion from NetWare to Linux. For a comparison of script commands, see Planning the Conversion of Load and Unload Scripts in the OES 2015 SP1 Beta: Novell Cluster Services NetWare to Linux Conversion Guide.

Load and unload scripts; no monitoring

NCP support for accessing files on shared NSS pools

Yes

Yes

NCP support for accessing files on shared NCP volumes on Linux POSIX file systems

Yes

Not applicable

NCP support for accessing files on Dynamic Storage Technology volumes made up of two NSS volumes

Yes

DST not available

Novell AFP support for accessing files on shared NSS pools

Yes; cross-protocol file locking available with NCP and Novell CIFS, or with NCP and Novell Samba

Yes; with cross-protocol file locking

Novell CIFS support for accessing files on shared NSS pools

Yes; cross-protocol file locking available with NCP and Novell AFP, or with NCP and Novell Samba

Yes; with cross-protocol file locking

Novell CIFS support for accessing files on Dynamic Storage Technology volumes made up of two NSS volumes

Yes; cross-protocol file locking available in NCP

DST not available

Linux Samba/CIFS support for accessing files on shared NSS pools on Linux

Yes; with cross-protocol file locking available in NCP

Requires users to be Linux-enabled with Linux User Management.

Requires Universal Password.

Not applicable

Linux Samba/CIFS support for accessing files on shared Linux POSIX file systems

Yes

Requires users to be enabled with Linux User Management.

Requires Universal Password.

Not applicable

Leverage Heartbeat 2 resource agents

Yes

Not applicable

LAN fault tolerance

Channel bonding

See /usr/src/linux/Documentation/bonding.txt

NIC teaming

See NIC Teaming in the NW 6.5 SP8: TCP/ IP Administration Guide

Multipath I/O

Device Mapper - Multipath I/O, or third-party MPIO solutions

See Managing Multipath I/O for Devices in the SLES 11 SP3: Storage Administration Guide.

Media Manager Multipath I/O, or third-party MPIO solutions

See Managing Multipath I/O to Devices (NetWare) in the NW 6.5 SP8: NSS File System Administration Guide.

Cascade failover prevention

Yes

Yes

Master node election process

New master election process as described in Electing a Master Node.

Old master election process

Monitor script

Yes

No

Resource Mutual Exclusion Groups

Yes

No

NCS-level monitoring of the NDSD daemon

Yes, OES 11 SP2 or later

No

STONITH

Yes

No

VLAN support

Yes

No