[vox-tech] Clustering two Linux machines

[Ted Deppner]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 12:52:20PM -0700, Matin Hashemi wrote:
> I would like to know how to make two Linux machines work as one computer. I
> think it's called "clustering" and a quick Google search showed me that
> there are quite a few different programs and Linux distributions for this

There are many, many options for doing this, and each depends heavily on
what it is you're trying to do.  There is no "magic cluster software" or
one size fits all solution.  Each thing you want to do will likely have a
different set of requirements and each tool a different set of benefits or
features.

You'll need to clearly define the services your linux machine currently
offers (ie http, samba, svn, etc), and then what types of fail over, load
balancing, load sharing, or high available you might wish each to have.
You also need to consider what your client systems can tolerate (ie, HTTP
fail over is quite easy, as is HTTP load balancing, but something like
samba fail over may not be so easy).

If your system is so important to require fail over or HA, then you may
actually want to dedicate a set of servers for each major service offered
(since you can then drill deeply into that service's best fail over
options rather than trying to pack 5 different solutions for 5 different
services).  If the actual need is more performance or throughput, then a
single larger server with a good backup strategy will likely be far easier
to impliment than trying to "cluster" several smaller machines.

So, list out some services and perhaps we can point you to some specifics
for further reading.

-- 
Ted Deppner
http://www.deppner.us/