Scalability and Clustering Overview
System Administration Manual
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Scalability and Clustering Overview
The Titan SiliconServer can be configured for standalone operation or as a two-node Active/
Active (A/A) High-Availability (HA) cluster. Through shared storage and centralized
management, multiple Titan SiliconServers and HA clusters can be joined together as a logical
unit called a Server Farm. File services are virtualized, allowing them to be migrated to any
Titan within the same HA cluster or Server Farm. Titan supports file services through special
entities called Enterprise Virtual Servers.
Enterprise Virtual Servers
Enterprise Virtual Servers (EVS) appear to network clients as actual file servers. Like a physical
server, these virtual servers are configured with IP addresses, have CIFS shares and NFS
exports for file sharing, and contain file systems. Network clients access EVS as unique,
individual servers, while the administration of EVS is localized to the server or cluster hosting
them. A single Titan server or HA cluster can support up to eight EVS.
To increase availability of file services provided by EVS, Titans can be configured as a High
Availability (HA) cluster. In an HA cluster, EVS can be balanced across the Cluster Nodes based
on the load and data access patterns of the individual Cluster Nodes. If one of the Cluster Nodes
should fail, all EVS in the cluster are automatically migrated to the remaining node.
Titans can be configured together as a Server Farm. Server Farms are collections of Titan
servers and/or HA clusters with a shared Storage Pool. EVS that are hosted on the Server Farm
can be migrated to any other server or HA cluster in the farm.
Shared Storage Pool
Every server in a HA cluster or Server Farm must share the same pool of storage. This ensures
that when EVS move from one server to another, whether due to an automatic failover in a HA
cluster or a manual migration of EVS amongst servers in a Server Farm, the target server has
access to the storage served by the EVS.
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Scalability and Clustering