Cluster management

Clustering is an effective technique for achieving high availability, as it introduces redundancy to software, hardware, and data. To assist in the implementation of high availability, you can introduce cluster management software to monitor and detect system failures.

IBM Tivoli System Automation for Multiplatforms is one solution that helps an organization to remain competitive, responsive, and flexible, and to operate in a cost-efficient way. It helps to reduce the frequency and duration of service disruptions. System Automation for Multiplatforms supports critical applications and middleware that run on heterogeneous platforms. A set of rules called a policy dictate the response to system failures, without the need for user intervention.

The policy identifies the relationships between applications or resources, and provides System Automation for Multiplatforms with extensive up-to-date information about the system landscape. By using this information, System Automation for Multiplatforms can identify and restart a failed resource. The solution either restarts the failed resource on the primary node, or the entire application is relocated and restarted on a standby cluster node.

System Automation for Multiplatforms is the preferred solution for high availability configuration of products that are based on Tivoli's process automation engine, but other cluster management software can also be implemented.