Symantec Veritas Cluster Server 5.0 Update 3, Installation Manual

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Introducing Veritas Cluster
Server
This chapter includes the following topics:
■
About Veritas Cluster Server
■
About VCS basics
■
About VCS features
■
About VCS optional components
About Veritas Cluster Server
Veritas™ Cluster Server by Symantec is a high-availability solution for cluster
configurations. Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) monitors systems and application
services, and restarts services when hardware or software fails.
About VCS basics
A single VCS cluster consists of multiple systems that are connected in various
combinations to shared storage devices. When a system is part of a VCS cluster,
it is a node. VCS monitors and controls applications running in the cluster on
nodes, and restarts applications in response to a variety of hardware or software
faults.
Applications can continue to operate with little or no downtime. In some cases,
such as NFS, this continuation is transparent to high-level applications and users.
In other cases, a user might have to retry an operation, such as a Web server
reloading a page.
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