About Clustering

Overview

A cluster is a group of independent application servers that work together as a single unit. This collaboration allows the distribution of workloads, data, and tasks among the connected servers, providing benefits such as load balancing, fault tolerance, and high availability.

The following architecture shows a basic cluster configuration.

Benefits of Server Clustering

Improved Reliability and Availability:

Server clustering enhances reliability by creating redundancy, ensuring that if one server fails, another takes over immediately, minimizing downtime, and ensuring continuous availability of services. This is achieved by deploying a High Availability Cluster architecture, which is used for Critical systems and applications that require uninterrupted operation.

Load Distribution and Scalability:

Clustering allows for the distribution of workloads across multiple servers, preventing bottlenecks and enabling scalability. New servers can be added to the cluster as demand increases. This is achieved by deploying a Load-Balancing Cluster architecture, which is used for web servers, application servers, and services with variable workloads.

Fault Tolerance and Disaster Recovery:

Clustering improves fault tolerance by automatically redirecting operations to healthy nodes in case of failures. Geographically distributed clusters also contribute to effective disaster recovery strategies. This is achieved by deploying a Failover Cluster architecture, which is used for Business-critical applications, databases, and services with minimal downtime tolerance.

See Next:

To learn more about Decisions Cluster Architecture, refer to Decisions Clustering.