[Linux-cluster] Cluster Planning

[Scott Kellogg]

>
> I don't want to sound rude, but either you (or your customer) have  
> the budget for a cluster or not.

My feelings exactly.  Unfortunately, I do not have control over the  
level of reactive, crisis-based decision-making.

> If you don't have the budget, it's better to just use the 2nd  
> server as hot-spare and rsync the data over to the 2nd one and do  
> the failover by hand (and even more so the re-activation of the  
> primary server)

This is a satisfactory solution.  Would you care to elaborate?  I  
have read the book "Linux Enterprise Clusters" and it offered several  
approaches to this.  The budget exists to buy Cluster Suite, which I  
was hoping would simplify configuration of Heartbeat and STONITH.

I have been looking at Unison as an option for synchronizing the  
primary node and the hot spare.

>
> This always reminds me of people who want to drive cars they cannot  
> really afford.

The real irony is that the customer IMO doesn't even *need* a  
failover solution.

/Scott