Creating a cluster
You can create a cluster from any BMC Discovery machine. The machine from which you create the cluster becomes the coordinator for that cluster. If an appliance has any changes from the default configuration, you can create a cluster with it as the coordinator, but you cannot add it to an existing cluster.
To create a cluster
- From the main menu, click the Administration Settings icon, and then click Cluster Management in the Appliance section.
- Click Create Cluster.
The Create Cluster dialog is displayed.
Enter the following information:
Field name
Details
Cluster name
The name of the cluster.
Cluster alias
Name for referring to all the machines in the cluster, such as when the machines are accessed through a load balancer. For example, a cluster has members called member1, member2 and member3. DNS is configured to resolve the name cluster100 to a load balancer. The load balancer is configured to share requests to cluster100 with the following hosts: member1, member2 and member3. In this case, the cluster alias is cluster100.
This is an optional field. Suppose you define a cluster alias then the subsequent generation of a server key populates the server name with this field. But nothing enforces the alias name—you can change it before creating the key. Therefore, cluster management is not affected adversely if you leave this field blank.
Coordinator address
The address of the machine to make the coordinator. If you started the creation process from a machine in a non-default state
Fault tolerance
Select the checkbox to enable fault tolerance. Fault tolerance enables the cluster to continue to operate even when some machines have failed. It works by ensuring that all data is stored on multiple machines. However, total storage capacity and overall performance are reduced as a consequence.
Member addresses
Enter the IP address or hostname information for the new members to add to the cluster. It can be in one of the following formats:
- IPv4 address (for example 192.168.1.100). Labeled v4.
- IPv6 address (for example 2001:500:100:1187:203:baff:fe44:91a0). Labeled v6.
- Hostname (for example wilkoapp2.tideway.com). Labeled Hn.
The addresses or hostnames used must resolve between all cluster members.
Click Create.
The operation is added to the Pending Changes section.
Additionally, a banner is displayed, stating what the pending cluster changes are.
- Click Commit Changes to create the cluster.
The services on the machines shut down, the cluster changes are made, and the services are restarted. The Cluster Management page is refreshed, showing the progress of the cluster creation.
- When the changes are complete and the machines have restarted, log in again.
The Cluster Management page shows the completed cluster. In this example, the cluster is rebalancing in the background, but is fully usable.