Managing HP Serviceguard for Linux, Sixth Edition, August 2006

Serviceguard for Linux at a Glance
What is Serviceguard for Linux?
Chapter 118
What is Serviceguard for Linux?
Serviceguard for Linux allows you to create high availability clusters
of HP ProLiant and HP Integrity servers. A high availability computer
system allows application services to continue in spite of a hardware or
software failure. Highly available systems protect users from software
failures as well as from failure of a system processing unit (SPU), disk, or
local area network (LAN) component. In the event that one component
fails, the redundant component takes over. Serviceguard and other high
availability subsystems coordinate the transfer between components.
A Serviceguard cluster is a networked grouping of HP ProLiant and HP
Integrity servers (host systems known as nodes) having sufficient
redundancy of software and hardware that a single point of failure
will not significantly disrupt service. Application services (individual
Linux processes) are grouped together in packages; in the event of a
single service, node, network, or other resource failure, Serviceguard can
automatically transfer control of the package to another node within the
cluster, allowing services to remain available with minimal interruption.
Figure 1-1 Conceptual representation of a Serviceguard cluster
configuration with two nodes.
Figure 1-1 Typical Cluster Configuration