Dante Architecture

• Similar in architecture and concept to the existing Homer cluster

• Will use same psh as homer

• Diagram of Dante cluster architecture design

• Dante components:

  • Compute servers: Dante01-32 (RS6000 E30, 2.1GB disk, 288MB RAM)

  • Application servers: Beatrice01-03 (RS6000 E30, 2.1GB disk, 408MB RAM)

  • Deskmail servers: Bp01-12 (RS6000 E30, 2.1GB internal, 2 X 2GB rack mounted high performance disks, 288MB RAM)

  • File servers: Guido01-03 (RS6000 C20, 2 X 1.1GB internal, 6 X 4GB rack mounted high performance disks, 128MB RAM)

  • Password server: Guido05 (RS6000 C20, 2 X 1.1GB internal, 2 X 2GB rack mounted high performance disks, 256MB RAM)
    Guido05 will be replaced by a more powerful 39H with 512MB RAM in the near future

• Remote hot spare cluster made up of one of each of the cluster server types will be included in the overall architecture for disaster recovery

• Front door sits on 140.142.15.XX which is broken into 4 variable length subnets. i.e. gateway will not be 140.142.15.100

• Back door sits on a flat network 198.48.89.XX

NIM overview

NIM stands for "Network Install Manager"

• "If it ain't broke, why fix it?"

• AIX version 4 supports a much broader range of hardware than V3.

• V3 network install involved cramming all device drivers into 3 or 4 diskettes, not feasible to do so with V4

• In addition to network installs, NIM also offers centralized software management, network boots of diagnostics and maintenence mode.

• Extra copies of NIM manuals in Kandi's office. Grab them today before they are thrown out, or send email to Kandi to reserve a copy.

• One NIM master per NIM environment.

• NIM clients are machines that use NIM for system maintenence and installation

Cloning with NIM (overview)

1. Need to define client machine to NIM master. Need to tell NIM network hardware address in this step

2. Then define client specific customization scripts to NIM. These scripts are typically used to set the machine's IP address when the cloning procedure is done.

3. Allocate a set of resources to the client. e.g. the mksysb image of the clone donor, the customization script, and the SPOT (shared product object tree).

4. Put the master in a state ready for the client to initiate an install. This step can be replaced with getting the master ready to serve a maintenence boot image or a hardware diagnostics boot image.

5. On the client, boot from IPL ROM

6. Fill in the client's IP address, server's (master) IP address and gateway IP address

7. Initiate network boot on client. If all goes well, you will have a clone machine of dante.