Red Hat Cluster Suite

Red Hat Cluster Suite
Name	Red Hat Cluster Suite
Developer	Red Hat
Released	2000s
Programming language	C, Python
Operating system	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Genre	High-availability cluster software

Red Hat Cluster Suite is a commercial clustering product for enterprise Linux by Red Hat designed to provide high availability, scalable file systems, and cluster management for mission-critical services. It integrates with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SELinux, and storage technologies to support workloads used by organizations such as NASA, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and Walmart. Vendors, system administrators, and integrators from IBM, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco Systems, and Intel Corporation have used it alongside technologies from Oracle Corporation, SAP SE, and VMware, Inc..

Overview

Red Hat Cluster Suite bundles clustering components to implement failover, load balancing, and distributed storage across nodes in environments like those at European Space Agency, National Institutes of Health, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. It interoperates with enterprise solutions from Microsoft Corporation via heterogeneous networking and with parallel file systems used by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and CERN. The suite aligns with standards referenced by organizations including The Open Group, Linux Foundation, IEEE, IETF, and Storage Networking Industry Association.

Architecture and Components

Architecturally, the suite combines cluster messaging, membership, fencing, cluster resource managers, and cluster file systems commonly deployed by enterprises such as HSBC, Citigroup, Barclays, and JPMorgan Chase. Core components interplay with services from Red Hat, Inc. parent organizations and partners like SUSE and Canonical. Key modules historically include cluster infrastructure inspired by projects associated with Kernel.org, GNOME Project, and Freedesktop.org. The design uses quorum models akin to those discussed in literature from Berkeley DB research groups at UC Berkeley and consensus concepts studied by researchers at MIT and Stanford University.

Installation and Configuration

Installation workflows reference distributions and tooling from Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Anaconda (installer), Kickstart, and management frameworks from Red Hat Satellite and Puppet, Inc.. Administrators follow patterns found in deployments by Facebook and Twitter to configure fencing agents compatible with hardware from Fujitsu, Lenovo, Supermicro, and Oracle Corporation (Hardware). Configuration files and clusters are often provisioned alongside orchestration tools developed by teams at Google LLC, Netflix, Inc., and Amazon Web Services.

High Availability Features

High-availability mechanisms include failover, resource agents, and quorum arbitration used in mission-critical systems at Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Siemens, and General Electric. Resource management strategies mirror principles from research at Carnegie Mellon University and production practices used at eBay. Fencing (STONITH) integrates with power-control and out-of-band management interfaces specified by IPMI, Redfish, and vendors such as HPE, Dell EMC, and Cisco Systems, reflecting operational models used by AT&T and Verizon Communications.

Cluster File Systems and Storage Integration

The suite supports clustered file systems and integrates with storage arrays from EMC Corporation, NetApp, Hitachi Vantara, and Pure Storage. It interoperates with distributed file systems studied at Los Alamos National Laboratory and deployed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. Administrators use it with SANs and NAS solutions following protocols developed by SNIA and standards promoted by IETF and IEEE. Integration patterns resemble deployments by Bloomberg L.P. and Thomson Reuters for financial data services.

Management and Monitoring

Management consoles and monitoring tie into ecosystems including Nagios, Zabbix, Prometheus, Grafana Labs, and Red Hat Satellite. Logging and telemetry align with platforms such as Splunk, ELK Stack, Graylog GmbH, and observability practices from New Relic, Inc. and Datadog, Inc.. Playbooks and automation scripts follow operational playbooks used at Uber Technologies and Lyft, Inc. for large-scale production infrastructures.

Security and Authentication

Security integrates with SELinux, Kerberos, LDAP, and enterprise identity providers like Microsoft Active Directory. Compliance and audit practices resemble controls referenced by PCI Security Standards Council, NIST, and ISO/IEC. Cryptographic libraries from projects such as OpenSSL and GnuTLS provide transport security, while role-based administration borrows ideas used at Goldman Sachs and Bank of America for separation of duties and privileged access management.

History and Development

Development traces to clustering research and commercial efforts influenced by projects at Red Hat, Inc. and community work donated to Kernel.org and subsumed by enterprise offerings similar to collaborations between SUSE and IBM. The product evolved alongside distributed systems research from MIT, Stanford University, and UC Berkeley, and operational lessons from large deployments at Yahoo!, AOL, and eBay. Over time, components were reworked or superseded by newer Red Hat products and open-source projects maintained by The Linux Foundation and contributors from Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft.

Category:Clustering software