Method And System For Clustering

• US 20090113034A1
• Filed: 10/15/2008
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Krishnappa, Nagendra, Chakravarti, Avishek, Yarangatta, Asha Ramamurthy
• Granted Patent: US 8,055,735 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B

Abstract

A system and a method for automatic cluster formation by automatically selecting nodes based on a selection criteria configured by the user is disclosed. During a cluster re-formation process, a failed node may automatically get replaced by one of the healthy nodes in its network, which is not part of any cluster avoiding cluster failures. In case of a cluster getting reduced to a single node due to node failures and failed nodes could not be replaced due to non-availability of free nodes, the single node cluster may be merged with a existing healthy clusters in the network providing a constant level of high availability. The proposed method may also provide an affective load balancing by maintaining a constant number of member nodes in a cluster by automatically replacing the dead nodes with a healthy node.

Claims

1. A method for clustering comprising

receiving, by a node, a request to create a dynamic cluster;

starting cluster services on the node;

copying a configuration file for dynamic luster on the node;

acquiring, by the node, the required number of nodes for cluster formation based on node selection criteria in the configuration file; and

populating the acquired nodes with cluster services parameters;

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the cluster services comprise inter cluster manager, local cluster manager, quorum services, local package, manager and local resource manager.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising electing a cluster monitor node.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein inter cluster manager runs on cluster monitor node.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising starting the package services, registering the cluster with quorum server and acquiring the lock disk.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising registering cluster information, configuration file and package information with the quorum server.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the request to create a dynamic cluster is initiated by a cluster administrator.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the request to create a dynamic cluster is initiated by a cluster coordinator in the network.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the required numbers of nodes are acquired based on minimum hardware configuration.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the required numbers of nodes are acquired based on a prioritized list of nodes provided by the administrator.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the required numbers of nodes are acquired based on suggestions from a work load manager.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the required numbers of nodes are acquired randomly from the available nodes in the network.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein acquiring the required number of nodes comprises:

determining node selection criteria from the configuration file;

sending a request to join to available nodes in the network;

parsing incoming replies based on selection criteria; and

building a list of candidate nodes.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising if there are no nodes available in the network then forcibly acquiring nodes from a low priority cluster.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein the node receiving a request to start cluster is a single node cluster in a panic state.

16. The method of claim 13 wherein the node selection criteria comprise one or more of minimum hardware configuration, prioritized list of potential nodes, nodes suggested by work load managers and random.

17. A method for clustering comprising:

broadcasting, by a node, a message requesting the status of the clusters in the network;

receiving and parsing replies from cluster monitors;

selecting a cluster which is not running;

acquiring a required number of nodes based on configuration file parameters; and

reforming the selected cluster by starting cluster services on the acquired nodes.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein parsing comprises comparing the replies from the cluster monitors with the configuration file stored on the node.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein cluster is selected based on the priority configured with the clusters.

20. A method of clustering comprising:

receiving, by a cluster, a request to merge from a node in a panic state in the network;

checking the ability to handle the package weight of the node in panic state; and

sending a ready to merge message and reforming the cluster with the node in panic state as new cluster member.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the node in panic state is a cluster with reduced number of nodes.

22. A node configured for dynamic clustering comprising:

an inter cluster manager for identifying a free node and copying a cluster configuration file on the free node; and

a local cluster manager for acquiring a required number of nodes for cluster formation based on node selection criteria in the configuration file; and

populating the acquired nodes with the configuration file.

23. The node of claim 22 wherein local cluster manager comprises:

local package manager for managing starting, stopping and reacting to changes in packages; and

local resource manager for monitoring the health of the network, interface, IP address services, reporting event management service resource value changes and activation support for LVM groups.

24. A computer program product for clustering the computer program product comprising a storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instruction for execution by a processing circuit for performing a method comprising the step of comprising:

receiving, by a node, a request to create a dynamic cluster;

starting cluster services on the node;

copying a configuration file for dynamic cluster on the node;

acquiring, by the node, the required number of nodes for cluster formation based on node selection criteria in the configuration file; and

populating the acquired nodes with cluster services parameters.

25. The computer program product of claim 24 further comprising starting the package services, registering the cluster with quorum server and acquiring the lock disk.

26. The computer program product of claim 24 wherein acquiring the required number of nodes comprises:

determining node selection criteria from the configuration file;

sending a request to join to available nodes in the network;

parsing incoming replies based on selection criteria; and

building a list of candidate nodes.