NonStop Cluster Essentials Installation and Quick Start Guide

1 Introduction to NonStop Cluster Essentials

HP NonStop Cluster Essentials, comprised of both an HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) plug-in

component and standalone applications, provides an integrated cluster management solution for

heterogeneous clusters. It supports clusters consisting of any or all of these server types:

• HP Integrity NonStop NS-series servers

• HP NonStop S-series servers

• HP Integrity NonStop BladeSystems

• Rack-mount or BladeSystem ProLiant servers running Red Hat Linux

NonStop Cluster Essentials provides the following functionality:

• Configuration of NonStop clusters or individual servers – done through the NonStop Cluster

Configuration Management Application.

NOTE: With NonStop Cluster Essentials 3.0.0, a server can be part of multiple cluster

configurations, see “Assigning a Server to Multiple Cluster Configurations” (page 24).

• Discovery of configured NonStop clusters in HP SIM – once a NonStop cluster has been

configured and at least one member system discovered in HP SIM, NonStop Cluster Essentials

automatically discovers and displays the cluster in HP SIM.

• Integrated health monitoring with state propagation across systems in the cluster – NonStop

Cluster Essentials accumulates the status from individual NonStop and Linux systems and

provides one aggregate health status indicator for each NonStop cluster. This health status is

dynamically updated in real-time.

• Integrated event monitoring from a single user interface – the NonStop Cluster Event Viewer

displays both EMS (Event Management System) events from NonStop systems and evlog events

from Linux systems.

• Integrated alert monitoring from a single user interface – In HP SIM, the Events tab of a NonStop

Cluster displays the aggregate alerts that have occurred on the individual systems in the cluster.

• Integrated boot to load and start all the components in the cluster in the correct sequence –

the NonStop Cluster Essentials Boot Application (supported on Windows consoles only) is

used to boot both NonStop and Linux systems together in a designated sequence or in parallel.

• Virtualized configuration and control via a single interface, without knowing the individual

platform-specific tools or command syntax – from the home page for an individual NonStop

cluster in HP SIM, a NonStop Cluster Management Tasks page provides access to all of the

available tasks.

• Unified user account management – the NonStop Cluster Account Management Application

can be used to a create a single username across all systems in the cluster.

• Software consistency check across systems – the NonStop Cluster Software Version Status tool

compares software versions across all NonStop servers of the same type and across all Linux

systems in the cluster, and reports the software versions that are not consistent.

• Integrated inventory reporting across systems in the cluster – available through the HP SIM

plug-in component of NonStop Cluster Essentials.

• The HP NonStop I/O Essentials plug-in can be used in conjunction with NonStop Cluster

Essentials to further extend NonStop system management functionality, including the ability

to perform actions on multiple CLuster I/O Modules (CLIMs) in different systems in a single