Theory Of Operation - Intergraph WebScale User Manual

WebScale™
Once you have installed and configured WebScale on all hosts that will belong to the
cluster, you are ready to begin cluster operations. To help you use WebScale
effectively, this section covers the following topics:

Theory of Operation

Cluster Control
Error Detection and
Handling
Event Logging
Theory of Operation
To get the maximum benefit from WebScale, it is important to understand how
WebScale works. This section explains WebScale's design goals and its theory of
operation.
What WebScale Does
WebScale's three principal goals are to:
provide high availability for Internet server applications and to
scale server performance
provide easy administration.
It accomplishes these goals by using a cluster of two or more computers (called hosts or
servers) working together. Internet clients access the cluster using a single IP address
(or a set of addresses for a multi-homed server), and they cannot distinguish the cluster
from a single server. Also, server applications cannot tell that they are running in a
cluster. However, a WebScale cluster differs significantly from a single host running a
single server application because it provides uninterrupted service even if a host fails,
and it can respond to the clients more quickly than a single host can (for load balanced
ports).
E
XECUTION AND
What WebScale does, how it works, and
how to adjust infrequently used registry
parameters
The WebScale command line utility for
controlling cluster operations and invoking
the WebScale Setup dialog
How WebScale detects and handles errors
How WebScale classifies and logs events
for your examination.
49
C
ONTROL
User's Guide