From the Back Cover
The ideal introduction to an exciting emergent technology-shared data clusters
What are shared data clusters? What is clustering technology? Does it really work? How does it work? How is data stored and accessed on clusters? Dilip Ranade takes you on a fascinating journey to answer these questions and learn all there is to know about this developing technology. Each chapter builds on what you have learned in the previous section, offering you a wide breadth of information at a comfortable pace. After you view the various hardware and software components that constitute a computer system, you'll receive an examination of how cluster software works with an in-depth look at essential clustering services such as locking and messaging. By the end of the book, you will use the progressive knowledge you have gained to understand how shared data clusters can be put to use. You'll study some real-world applications that can be used on a cluster, the difficulties in deploying them, best practices, and finally two case studies -- cluster file systems and cluster managers.
Ranade thoroughly covers all you need to know about shared data clusters, including:
* Networks for clusters
* Storage subsystems
* Highly available systems
* Volume managers
* File systems
* Databases and other applications
* Monitoring, messaging, and transactions in a cluster
* Cluster lock manager, cluster volume manager, and cluster file system
About the Author
DILIP M. RANADE is Lead Technical Engineer for VERITAS Cluster File Systems. He has worked on clusters and file systems for the past ten years and helped develop an indigenous distributed file system from scratch for the Indian Massively Parallel Supercomputer PARAM.
Veritas
Wiley Computer Publishing has teamed with VERITAS Software Corporation to deliver a series of books for the enterprise storage management community. These titles will provide system and network administrators, server application developers, and storage engineers with in-depth, hands-on information on how to build scalable, quick, and highly available storage area networks. Key books in the series, including this one, are designed to help CIOs make the decisions as to when and how to embark on investing in new technology.
