Advantages of server clusters: Achieve maximum performance

As demands for server speed and reliability increase, the need to implement reliable server clusters to ensure maximum performance becomes paramount. Tightly integrated clusters of multiple servers working together enable us to deliver robust services that are resilient, consistent, and provide uninterrupted performance.

Server clusters are the key to providing superior business service availability while controlling costs at the same time. Learn some of the key benefits of using server clusters.

A server cluster is a group of servers that are all associated with the same IP address. These may provide access to files, printers, messages and e-mail, or database records. Each server on a cluster is called a node, and each node has its own CPU and RAM, and independent or shared data storage, so it can run independently.

The main benefit of server clustering is increased uptime through redundancy. Even if one node (one server) in a cluster fails, the other nodes can recover the slack almost instantly. User access is essentially uninterrupted, and unless your server cluster is already severely under-resourced, you should not experience any performance issues for expected user loads.

Server clustering is used in a variety of hosting environments. In other words, the benefits of server clusters aren’t limited to mission-critical applications. However, its main advantage is that it is not susceptible to service interruptions due to the failure of a single server node. This is kind of the holy grail for mission-critical applications.

Operating backup servers on-site or off-site can provide similar benefits. However, there is often a noticeable failure of the service during the transfer to the backup, increasing the potential for data loss, especially if the server is often not backed up continuously.

The main benefits of server clusters are reliability and availability. However, there are many ways to achieve these two goals, and many strategies for maximizing reliability and availability over other factors, especially cost.

There are basically two types of server clustering strategies: traditional and shared-nothing strategies.

In traditional server clustering, multiple redundant server nodes access the same shared storage or SAN resources. If a server node fails or experiences downtime, the next node quickly recovers and accesses the same storage, resulting in essentially zero data loss. However, if the SAN fails, problems arise.

Shared-nothing server clustering assumes that each node has a completely independent data store (essentially a hard drive). These drives are typically synchronized at the block level, effectively making them identical from moment to moment. In the event of a failure anywhere within the cluster, another node can completely take over that hard drive.

The central defense that server clustering provides against service outages is component redundancy. for example:

Application and service failures are often caused by serious errors in the software the server is running. Clustering helps by running multiple independent copies of software.

When a physical failure or failure occurs, it typically affects only one node of the cluster. Other nodes can take over.

Site failures typically occur across data centers due to power outages, natural disasters, human error, etc. Clustering can protect against site failure only if one or more nodes of the cluster are located at different sites. This is expensive and inefficient, but very doable.

With all the benefits of server clusters, it’s easy to forget that every server is potentially vulnerable. When setting up a clustered server, you must deal with the same security issues as with any other server.

• Please use a proper firewall.
• Keep your OS up to date.
• Securely move data to and from your cluster.
• Use strong authentication procedures.
• Physically secure your servers.
• Consider file system encryption.

Let’s dig deeper into what a server cluster is and examine each of the main types of clustered server deployments.

These are basic clustered storage solutions with no additional features. It works perfectly for most purposes and is low cost.

These are typically shared storage clusters and may consist of virtual machines running on a single host. Maximizes uptime, but may slightly compromise reliability.

These clusters use, as you might expect, load balancers or cluster switches to balance the load of incoming requests across multiple nodes running simultaneously. Optimize for service speed, not uptime or reliability.

HPC clusters use top-of-the-line hardware and the fastest interconnects available on each node of a large cluster. This maximizes performance, but because it is primarily done at the hardware level, it usually does not compromise reliability or availability. All three are often higher than standard clusters.

One of the most important practical benefits of server clusters is the IT cost savings that customers commonly experience. Less downtime means even an expensive setup will cost less in the end.

Other benefits include greater flexibility, scalability, performance, availability, and easier customization of your server infrastructure.

Server clustering is a highly effective strategy for ensuring that your most mission-critical data resources receive all the uptime they need. Although there are several ways to tune your cluster architecture or hardware to focus on specific benefits, almost all server clustering strategies improve performance, uptime, and reliability. This is a problem of choosing the best among several good options, and it’s a type of problem that is too neglected in the IT industry.