Customer Reviews

Linux Enterprise Cluster: Build a Highly Available Cluster with Commodity Hardware and Free Software

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You ever find a reference that becomes your best friend - that you can't put down? I looked through three other books on clusters, including Oreilly's... They were all good, but missing the "rubber meets the road" factor.

I have the proverbial "Wall of Oreilly" in my office. But this book wins out for wide clustering.

I needed to deploy a highly-available, fault-tolerant, hi-performance cluster of cheap servers so that I could sleep at night knowing that my web services were live - and would remain that way.

This book met the challenge head-on. Mon, cron, init, Linux Virtual Servers (IPVS/LVS), SNMP, Heartbeat, etc are all covered with a "here's how you do it" approach.

My only problem with the book was that the examples were all for Redhat, which I honestly don't agree stands up to the true intent of Open Source anymore... I think the book should be directed at Debian instead.

Anyway, the book was still great for me as most of the packages used are similar between platforms.

There ARE typos. In fact, I found a few critical ones in code snippets and some confusing ones in the descriptions where it looks like the paragraphs got mixed up, so be sure to look at the snippets with more than a cut&paste attitude. (if the author is looking for edits for another release/update, please contact me - I happen to be a copy editor and a programmer)

IMHO, THIS is the future of linux server computing. Please support more books like this by buying it. Honestly, I might actually look into other books by "No Starch" based on my good experience here.

BTW, this book is devoted to what I consider "WIDE" clustering (LVS/IPVS - processing allot of small computations - focus is on response time) versus other books focused on "DEEP" clustering (Beowulf - processing fewer but more intense computations - focus is on CPU throughput). So if you're looking for the latter, look elsewhere.

The sheer number of books published in the recent years that cover the Linux Operation System is simply staggering. One aspect of Linux that has been explored recently is its enablement that is gives users that wish to build a clustered environment. Using free software and commodity hardware many organizations small to large, and even end-users such as myself, have been able to build a cluster or a Grid using Linux very cheaply. This book by Karl Koppers shows the readers a step-by-step guide of how to go about building an enterprise grade Linux cluster environment. The author depicts each step one by one for the reader and demonstrates what each step does and why "we do what do we".

The following steps required for building a cluster are explored in detail in this book:
* Understanding of the underlying Linux routing (NetFilter and basic packet routing)
* Understanding of SystemImager program, and how it can help you in building a large cluster
* Learning of to apply configuration changes to your cluster efficiently
* Learn to build a Linux Virtual Server Network Address Translation fro your cluster, and learn why you need such capability
* Learn how to manage failures in your cluster including software and hardware failures
* Learn how to manage and monitor your cluster from a single point using a Web-based GUI
* Learn how to apply software patches and updates to your cluster
* Administrator user accounts and remote login including password-less login via SSH
* Learn how to install a cluster print server
* Learn how to install a batch-job scheduling system on your cluster

As you can see, there are lots covered in this book. Some of the basics of the underlying Linux system and Kernel gets the reader off on a good start, and starts the foundation upon which the rest of your cluster can be built.

Unlike any other book that claims to cover this topic, Karl has added a number of chapters on the understanding (he calls them theory of ...) of the concept and why things are done the way they are instead of just telling the reader what to do. These chapters can be skipped, obviously, but I found them to be extremely useful because it gives me a deeper knowledge of the topic at hand makes me understand the topic better. The whole point of the book is to enable someone, by simply going thru the book chapter by chapter, to build a medium to a large size cluster. A how-to guide that is packed with the appropriate software packages discussed in the text.
My favorite topics in this book must the central administration of the cluster via Ganglia, and High-Availability configuration chapters. These two, monitoring and reliability, are key difficult areas which the author covers in detail.

The combination of the book and the accompanying CD-ROM packed with software packages make this book a great buy. I have built my own cluster, but I am re-doing my environment by going thru this book chapter-by-chapter. I highly recommend this book to anyone involved or interested in building or maintaining Linux Clusters.

The book offers practical advice in putting together the hardware of several linux machines. Such that you end up with one big and robust computer. The attraction is price. The machines use commodity hardware and linux is free. As opposed to an expensive monolithic computer.

The book's audience appears to be a sysadmin or network designer. Very details oriented. Much attention is given to system utilities that you will need to monitor this network that is the cluster. A big benefit of the book is in simply educating you as to what utilities have already been written under linux, to support clusters.

The clustering described in the book does not seem to encompass mentioning Beowulf clusters. The latter is an alternative approach that has seen some adoption in scientific circles. I'm guessing that from what the book describes of a linux enterprise cluster, that the omission might be because linux now has the equivalent capability.

Clusters, like many things, come in various flavors. These can be roughly stated as `high throughput', `high performance (HPC)', and `high availability'. The "Linux Enterprise Cluster" is a good read for those looking for the `high-availability' cluster flavor, for perhaps a mission-critical computing resource. There is thus more emphasis on fail-over and service request handling than, for example, MPI, exacting operation calculations, and HSI maximizing techniques typical of HPC endeavors. This is not to say this book is not applicable to the other cluster types. Could you do with a chapter on SystemImager? How about Ganglia? Rsync & SSH? Building a kernel? All this step-by-step? Awesome! I was building an HPC cluster at the time, and found this a good book for drilling into deeper cluster software infrastructure details while at the park or waiting for a class to start. It was however sparse on hardware details and proper supporting infrastructure, but no book under 10 pounds is going to cover everything so be prepared to read a lot. I did not evaluate the included CD-ROM, which is loaded with goodies, because I simply downloaded the packages from the Internet as needed.
4-stars

Theres plenty of information in here, but the biggest problem I had with working my way through the book is it's structure. The book presents the topics in a bottom-up way, kicking off with low-level xinetd & init configuration, and doesn't actually get down to an overview of clustering until page 196! Thats fine if you already know what you're aiming for, but for the novice looking for an overview of clustering in the Linux environment, it's almost better to read the book backwards - start with Chapter 20 (an overview of the whole environment), read through Chapters 11-13 (cluster architecture and components), and finally hit Chapters 6-8 (heartbeat) and the remaining chapters (which go into detail on the various different components).

If high-availability is one of your primary concerns for your computer network then an enterprise cluster is something you will want to look into. In this book the author does an excellent job of explaining the purpose of an enterprise cluster and exactly how they work. Not just theory, the book details exactly how to install the various components of the system and even includes the required software on CD.

This is the first book I have seen on Linux clustering that not only provides a theoretical background but also a complete detail on how to actually implement it in the real world. He details setting up the heartbeat, IP failover, NAT, synchronizing and cloning, handling packets, and load balancing. Easily the best book on Linux Enterprise Cluster setup and maintenance that I have seen to date, The Linux Enterprise Cluster is highly recommended.

Karls book seems for me the perfect book for small clusters. He describes every single install and configuration aspect I could possible think of.

The book is extremly readable and described each single step and its considerations easy understandable. It does read at times a bit theoretical like it was made by a teacher, ruther than a technichian, but perhaps that is why it is so comprehensible.

For the details found inside it is very compact which makes it easy to carry it with you when you go onsite.

Whats not described in the book:

Environmental considerations like Heat, Power consumption, Budget calculations on several technologies etc.

Those are described in Roert W. Lubkes - Building clustered Linux systems.

Those 2 books compliment each other very nicely.

This book covers the material thoroughly. It's detailed, specific and the writing style is among the more pleasant I've encountered in a technical book of this sort. In its day this was probably THE book to have on the subject of clustering Linux servers. Unfortunately, it seems to have been published just ahead of the arrival of heartbeat version 2. Version 2 of heartbeat still supports the kinds of configurations demonstrated in this book, but it has grown vastly more capable, and also significantly more complex; this book will not help you with that.

If you need to build a two node cluster for a highly available web server or the like, this book and the included software, (you gotta love open source), will get you there in style. For a grounding in the basics, and even the complexities, of clustering servers for high availability this book will not disappoint. If you want to build a n-node cluster using the latest and greatest version of heartbeat this one won't help much, I'm afraid.

The Linux Enterprise Cluster is a straightforward guide to building a network of multiple computers that pool their resources to act as one powerful computer. An accompanying CD-ROM provides all the software needed to build a Linux Enterprise Cluster on top of one's current Linux distribution, including the Linux kernel, rsync, the Systemlmager package, the Heartbeat package, the Linux Virtual Server package, the Mon monitoring package, and the Ganglia package. Chapters cover everything from handling packets and compiling the kernel to synchronizing servers, applying theory and practice, balancing loads, simple maintenance and management protocol, and more. Though intended for Linux users who are already familiar with the software's basics, The Linux Enterprise Cluster walks one through projects and pitfalls step-by-step with the expected thoroughness of a No Starch Press manual. A "must-have" for anyone interested in harnessing the power of a cluster using a much less expensive Linux base rather than purchasing a large, monolithic server.

If you want to build any HA cluster, this book is for you. The author has the ability to write from entry level to advanced Linux admin skillsets. His recipies for HA and LVS clusters are complete and realistic. We all know there are few Linux books we read from cover to cover. This is one of them.