Red Hat Cluster Suite for Red Hat Enterprise Linux
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Introduction
This document provides a high-level overview of Red Hat Cluster Suite for Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 4.7. Although the information in this document is an overview, you should have advanced
working knowledge of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and understand the concepts of server
computing to gain a good comprehension of the information. For more information about using
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, refer to the following resources:
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Installation Guide — Provides information regarding installation.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Introduction to System Administration — Provides introductory
information for new Red Hat Enterprise Linux system administrators.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Administration Guide — Provides more detailed information
about configuring Red Hat Enterprise Linux to suit your particular needs as a user.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Reference Guide — Provides detailed information suited for more
experienced users to reference when needed, as opposed to step-by-step instructions.
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Security Guide — Details the planning and the tools involved in
creating a secured computing environment for the data center, workplace, and home.


Red Hat Cluster Suite Overview
Clustered systems provide reliability, scalability, and availability to critical production services.
Using Red Hat Cluster Suite, you can create a cluster to suit your needs for performance, high
availability, load balancing, scalability, file sharing, and economy. This chapter provides an
overview of Red Hat Cluster Suite components and functions, and consists of the following
sections:


Cluster Basics
A cluster is two or more computers (called nodes or members) that work together to perform a
task. There are four major types of clusters:
• Storage
• High availability
• Load balancing
• High performance
Storage clusters provide a consistent file system image across servers in a cluster, allowing the
servers to simultaneously read and write to a single shared file system. A storage cluster
simplifies storage administration by limiting the installation and patching of applications to one
file system. Also, with a cluster-wide file system, a storage cluster eliminates the need for
redundant copies of application data and simplifies backup and disaster recovery. Red Hat
Cluster Suite provides storage clustering through Red Hat GFS.