What is a cluster in Netapp storage

Summary

This tutorial introduces the concept of clusters in NetApp technology, starting with a general explanation of what a cluster is. Clusters enhance service reliability by using multiple nodes to ensure high availability and load balancing. In NetApp, clusters consist of nodes or controllers, where ONTAP software runs. The cluster manages traffic, directing it to active nodes, providing high availability and load balancing. The tutorial explains how clusters work, with nodes communicating through a network to manage workloads and ensure service continuity. Future sections will cover cluster configuration and other technical details.

Takeaways

• 📊 The term 'cluster' in NetApp technology refers to a system where multiple nodes work together to provide services to end users.
• 👥 A cluster consists of nodes, which are physical hardware boxes running ONTAP software.
• 🔄 Clusters provide high availability by redirecting users to active nodes if one node goes down, ensuring continuous service.
• 🔀 In a cluster, traffic is managed and directed by a central cluster service, which decides which node is active or passive.
• 🌐 Clusters can also be configured for load balancing, distributing user traffic across multiple active nodes to handle high user volumes.
• ⚙️ Nodes within a cluster communicate via a network to monitor each other’s status and ensure proper traffic redirection.
• 📶 High availability and data resiliency in a cluster are achieved by having multiple nodes, some active and some passive, ready to take over if an active node fails.
• 💼 In NetApp technology, a cluster can consist of various types of nodes, such as controllers or all-flash systems, depending on workload requirements.
• 🔌 Each node in a cluster has network ports, expansion slots, and other components necessary for their operation and communication.
• 📡 The overall goal of clustering is to ensure continuous service availability, manage traffic efficiently, and provide scalability by adding more nodes as needed.

Q & A

What is a cluster in simple terms?

A cluster is a set of nodes (servers) working together to ensure high availability, load balancing, and data resiliency. It helps maintain service continuity by redirecting user requests to active nodes if one node fails.

What is the primary purpose of a cluster in NetApp technology?

The primary purpose of a cluster in NetApp technology is to ensure data availability and high availability by managing multiple nodes and redirecting traffic to active nodes in case of failures.

How does a cluster handle node failures?

A cluster handles node failures by redirecting traffic to another active node. The cluster monitors the status of each node and reroutes user requests to ensure continuous service availability.

What are nodes in a cluster?

Nodes are individual servers or controllers in a cluster that provide services to end-users. They can be in an active or passive state, depending on the cluster configuration.

What is the role of the cluster in managing traffic?

The cluster acts as an intermediary that manages traffic by deciding which node should handle the user requests based on their status (active or passive) and load balancing needs.

What is the significance of high availability (HA) in a cluster?

High availability ensures that services are always accessible by having multiple nodes where at least one is always active. This minimizes downtime and maintains continuous service delivery.

How does load balancing work in a cluster?

Load balancing in a cluster distributes user requests across multiple active nodes to ensure no single node is overwhelmed, improving performance and reliability.

What is the difference between active and passive nodes in a cluster?

Active nodes handle user requests and provide services, while passive nodes are on standby and take over only if the active node fails, ensuring high availability.

What components are typically found in a NetApp cluster?

A NetApp cluster typically includes nodes (controllers), network ports, expansion slots, NV-RAM, SAS ports, cables, and disks, all connected and managed to ensure high availability and performance.

Why is a network required in a cluster configuration?

A network is required in a cluster configuration to enable communication between nodes for status monitoring, synchronization, and ensuring seamless failover and load balancing operations.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Clustering

The video begins with an introduction to the concept of clusters, explaining the general meaning of a cluster and its importance in technology, particularly in NetApp. The speaker sets the stage for understanding clusters by discussing the basic idea of a service being provided to users, and the problems that arise if this service fails. The solution involves having multiple nodes to ensure continuous service availability, highlighting the concept of high availability through active and passive nodes managed by a cluster.

05:02

🔄 Expanding the Cluster for Resilience

This section elaborates on enhancing cluster resilience by adding more nodes. Instead of just two nodes, a cluster can include several nodes to distribute the load and ensure high availability. The speaker describes a scenario where multiple nodes (node1, node2, node3, node4) can handle traffic from multiple users, ensuring load balancing and data resilience. The concept of load balancing is introduced, emphasizing that distributing the load across multiple nodes prevents any single node from becoming overwhelmed.

10:03

🔗 Network and Node Communication

The discussion moves to the network communication between nodes within a cluster. The importance of a network that allows nodes to communicate, check each other's status, and ensure they are operational is highlighted. This network enables nodes to detect failures and switch roles from passive to active, ensuring uninterrupted service. The speaker explains how nodes monitor each other and update the cluster to redirect traffic accordingly, maintaining service availability.

Keywords

💡Cluster

A cluster refers to a group of interconnected nodes or controllers that work together to provide high availability, data resiliency, and load balancing. In the context of the video, the cluster manages multiple nodes to ensure continuous service availability, directing user traffic to the appropriate node based on their status (active or passive).

💡Node

A node is an individual service unit within a cluster, often referred to as a controller in NetApp technology. Nodes serve user requests and can be designated as active or passive. The video explains that a node can failover to another node to maintain service availability, illustrating the high availability aspect of clusters.

💡High Availability (HA)

High Availability refers to a system design that ensures continuous operational performance, even in the event of component failures. In the video, HA is achieved by having active and passive nodes within a cluster, allowing for seamless failover if an active node goes down, thus keeping the service available to users.

💡Load Balancing

Load Balancing is the process of distributing user requests across multiple nodes to ensure no single node is overwhelmed, thus optimizing resource use and performance. The video describes a scenario where users are evenly distributed across multiple active nodes, highlighting how load balancing enhances service efficiency and reliability.

💡NetApp

NetApp is a technology company that provides data storage and management solutions. The video focuses on NetApp's implementation of clusters, describing how their ONTAP software runs on controllers (nodes) to manage data and services efficiently within a clustered environment.

💡ONTAP Software

ONTAP is NetApp's data management software that runs on nodes/controllers within a cluster. It facilitates the clustering of nodes and manages the network communications and data services. The video mentions ONTAP in the context of it being the operating system that enables NetApp clusters to function effectively.

💡Controller

A controller, in the context of the video, is synonymous with a node. It is a physical hardware component within a NetApp cluster that runs ONTAP software. Controllers manage data storage and processing, and their collaboration within a cluster ensures high availability and data resiliency.

💡Active/Passive

Active/Passive refers to the status of nodes within a cluster. An active node handles user requests and services, while a passive (or standby) node remains ready to take over if the active node fails. The video explains this concept to illustrate how clusters maintain service availability through failover mechanisms.

💡Heartbeat

A heartbeat is a network signal sent between nodes in a cluster to monitor their status. It helps nodes detect if another node has gone down, triggering failover to maintain service availability. The video describes heartbeats as part of the underlying network communication that supports cluster management and high availability.

💡Data Resiliency

Data Resiliency refers to the ability of a system to recover and maintain data integrity despite failures. In the video, data resiliency is achieved through clustering, where multiple nodes ensure that data services continue uninterrupted even if one or more nodes fail, thus protecting against data loss.

Highlights

Introduction to the concept of a cluster in general before discussing NetApp technology.

Explanation of a cluster as a service provided to end users.

Illustration of the issue when a single service node goes down and its impact on user satisfaction.

Introduction of redundancy by adding another node to ensure service availability.

Description of active-passive and active-active node configurations in a cluster.

Explanation of the cluster's role in redirecting traffic to active nodes.

Discussion on high availability (HA) and how clusters ensure continuous access to services.

Introduction of load balancing to distribute user traffic across multiple active nodes.

Detail on expanding clusters by adding more nodes for greater resilience and load distribution.

Explanation of cluster management and decision-making processes for directing traffic.

Overview of NetApp cluster technology and its components, including nodes and controllers.

Clarification that nodes and controllers in NetApp terminology are physical hardware running ONTAP software.

Description of the need for a network to connect cluster nodes for communication and coordination.

Explanation of the failover process where passive nodes become active when the current active node fails.

Detailed discussion on the internal components of a cluster, including network ports, expansion slots, and NV-RAM.

Mention of the various ports and connections required for cluster nodes, such as SAS ports and cables.

Emphasis on the importance of data availability and resiliency through cluster configurations.

Summary of the overall structure and components of a NetApp cluster, highlighting its purpose and functionality.

Transcripts

[Music]

[Applause]

hello and welcome to this

tutorial today we're going to talk about

the cluster term

but before talking about the cluster

term in netapp technology i would like

to talk a little bit

overly and generally related talk about

the actual

cluster meaning and what is a cluster

you might

wonder what is a cluster and i've seen a

lot of people asking me what is the

meaning of the cluster overlay can you

can you explain to us what is a cluster

in a simple

sentence well it's not really easy

but should just explain a cluster in

some sentences but i would like to

discuss a little bit

generally about the term cluster before

going through the netapp

cluster technology and what is the

meaning of the actual cluster in the

netapp technology

so let's take a look at this idea here

so we have the idea of cluster and it

start from the thing

that imagine that we have a service

and i'm just serving a service to

some end users and this is our end user

i have a user for example here

and this user is trying to get

service i don't care about the service

right now it could be a web server

it could be a dead database actually it

could be

a file server or in netapp technology

it's actually the data right we have the

data inside the

service object which i i would like to

call it a node

so we have a service we are serving this

service to

or end users and they're happy but there

is one problem with this

what if the service goes down if the

service goes down

like this let me choose the red one

if it goes down our users they are not

no longer happy and they become unhappy

so how we can fix this problem the way

that we can fix this problem it's

really easy and that is just if you have

a service

and if it is an important service it's a

good idea

to have another

object beside it

it's the same service if i call this

node

1 this is actually node 2 right

and and this is my user

so i can just redirect the user to node

one for example and node one it's gonna

be for example

in this scenario active node i can just

uh mark this as active and the other one

as passive or standby

so the user can go to node one and get

whatever it wants

and when the node one is down actually

it's not working it can go to node two

for

serving the service and just get

whatever he wants

but the problem is that if it's uh if we

just send the user directly to node one

how the user actually can understand

the node is down and it should go now to

node two

this is a little tricky here and that is

we shouldn't actually

send the user to node one we should

actually send the user to an

object here which we call it cluster

and we send the user to this object

and then we decide here on the cluster

that we should send

traffic right now to node 1 or to node

2. so this cluster is a tiny software

it's like an application or service

which is managing everything and we

should have a point of contact here

which usually is an address right it

could be

we will talk about all the addresses and

all details if you're not familiar with

the

addresses but it could be ip average it

could be a wwpn for the fiber channel

or anything something anything else but

we're just sending our user to this

cluster and then cluster decide

whether node one is down or it's active

or node two is active

based on the scenario that we have or

there should be some contact between

these two

and with the cluster actually to

understand what's going on

so this is a scenario like active and

passive

and the cluster it's it's just a

redirected traffic to the node that is

active this is actually for data

availability so we have a h a scenario

here it's a high availability

we always we can make sure that we

always have access to the service

if services that node one is down we can

go to node two

and for adding more resiliency to this

scenario we can have

more nodes here so instead of just two

nodes we can have node

three we can have node four and we can

have different nodes here and we can

expand our cluster across

all of these nodes right this is our

cluster now

our cluster and our user can contact the

cluster first and then

our cluster decide which node is active

and the address for example are passive

or they're not working

and then the user will contact this one

which is active

and then uh if this one goes down

the other one of the other nodes it

becomes active and

or users can't contact

that one and it can still work

this is one scenario the other one that

i like

to explain more about is that imagine

that we have

some nodes so now we know the term node

or nodes these are nodes actually inside

a cluster

we have different method in the cluster

configuration

and services that we are running imagine

this is a four

nodes cluster node one node two node

three

and node four and

so we have the cluster which is

something like this

just managing all the nodes so in the

previous scenario

onenote was active and the rest they

were as

a passive standby but we can have some

scenarios that all

know could be active in active state

it means that your user

will access the cluster this is the

cluster

and then based on the number of users

imagine you have

if you have four users here

one goes to node one one goes to node

two

one goes to node three and one goes to

node four so in

in this case you're actually load

balancing the

traffic diff across nodes so if you have

four million users one million to node

one one million to node two one million

to not three and one million to node

four so you're actually

you're having high availability data

resiliency

and load balancing in this scenario so

this is the meaning of the cluster it

means that

you want the service to be available all

the time

so you can have an edge a one active and

one passive or some active some passive

or you want to have a load balancing it

means that one of your nodes cannot do

their

the al all the job imagine if you have

one node

the one not actually cannot handle four

million users it's too much for a node

but if you have four nodes

yeah that would be okay so this is

generally the meaning of a cluster

uh in the very very

actually a very high level and we will

discuss more about the clustering and

how we can configure it

i have a different section related to

the how the clusters actually are

configured and how are different methods

but i

before start anything related to the uh

on top i just wanted to explain a little

bit more about the

the meaning of the cluster very very

over already and

high level so let's go back to the slide

here

so in that in a netapp technology

actually cluster is

one or more uh fast system

or fast controllers or all flash

contours that

the on ontap software is run on top of

them

so here from now we have terms

nodes and we have controllers they are

actually the same

so it's the controller or node are the

physical

boxes they're hardware they're netapp

hardware that the untapped software is

run on top of these

physical box boxes actually

so we have nodes we have controllers if

we combine these nodes together we have

multiple nodes

and we call them a cluster

right so now we know what is the meaning

of a cluster

and in untapped terminology

a clone controller is a node and they

are the same thing

in a cluster with more than one actually

we need

a network that connect these cluster

together

so if you take a look at the picture

again

so you can see here uh

as we have nodes so this is our node for

example oops

this is or not node one

and this is our node two

so and the this is our cluster

which are user or contact in the cluster

the point of contact

is the address and then based on if the

node is active

or if the node is passive the cluster

will redirect the traffic to the proper

node so there should be something in the

background

a network that is not to be

should be able to talk with each other

from this network

in order to start send heartbeat to each

other send signal to each other that

which one is alive

so node two is actually listen to this

link

uh check node 1 to see if node 1 is

available or not and

at the moment the node 1 goes down

node 2 c can check the node 1 from this

link and can understand that oh node 1

is down it's not working anymore now i

am the only one and i'm now the active

node

so it can change itself from node

actually passive node to a to an

active node and then it can update the

cluster and then cluster

change this direction of traffic

to the here and the user actually can

reach to the

right point point so

here is the meaning of the cluster and

actually we need

a uh network on the background to be

able to contact

to be able for the nodes actually to

contact each other but uh

in the and in the netapp scenario we

need a network in the background to do

this

so overall the meaning of the cluster

now i guess it's clear so

a cluster it's a mix of the nodes

and mix of the controllers and we can

combine them together

and depending on the workload

requirements that we have

we we can have different nodes different

models uh

inside the actual cluster and we can

work with the

with the cluster and in the cluster

actually

uh we have different stuff on the

cluster we have

network ports we have expansion slots uh

and in the node actually we have these

uh uh

ports so each controller have they have

their own network ports they have their

modules

and they have their they have their

nvram uh

which we will talk more about these uh

these terms

but uh in a very very high level

and overly a cluster consists of

consists of all of these things that

you're seeing right now in the on the

powerpoint so and a cluster consists of

node

which there are controllers and

ontap software is running on the

controllers and nodes actually

and each node they have different ports

uh there could be network parts

and fiber channel ports and then we have

expansion slots

which we can use for different purposes

and nodes actually they have

uh other things connected to them

and usually these the other stuff that

you're seeing here they are related to a

node

and like these shelves for example

they're connected to nodes we have

sas ports and cables and we have disks

and everything

so all of these stuff are actually

connected to the

to the node so here

it was the the term cluster and

an overall view of the cluster what is

the meaning of the cluster

and the things that you may see

in a cluster i hope you have a good time

i'll see you in the next module

[Music]

[Applause]