Note
You are viewing the documentation for an older release of Interworx (6.x). To see documentation for the current generally available release of Interworx, click here: 7.13.
Clustering Explanation and Overview¶
What Is Clustering?¶
Clustering is a way for several servers to act as one. One InterWorx
Control Panel server acts as the Director (aka Cluster Manager), and
the other InterWorx servers are set as Nodes (Slaves). By default, the
nodes mount the /home partition of the director, but using an external
NFS device is also an option. When a web request is made, it will be
load balanced across all of the servers, according to the IP-based
load balanced policies.
What are the benefits of clustering?¶
The chief benefit of clustering is that that you have the resources of
several servers working as one. You can use the load balancing
policies to separate different services to different nodes in the
cluster as well. The most common use for clustering is to combine the
resources of several servers to power one or more popular and/or
processor intensive sites, and to improve availability.
Are there any drawbacks of clustering?¶
Given the nature of clustering, there is some increased complexity vs.
a single server solution. However, we work very hard to minimize this
complexity to make the experience as painless as possible, and the
benefits can more than make up for it.
Does InterWorx Control Panel support High Availability (HA) Clusters?¶
No, not at this time, however a future release will support this.
There is no eta at this time, but stay tuned!
Will InterWorx Control Panel Clustering work with a NAT setup?¶
The clustering/load balancing setup for InterWorx Control Panel
servers *will* work in NAT’d setup under the following conditions:
You must use STATIC NAT, where there is a one-to-one correspondence
between external and internal IP’s. You can use InterWorx Control
Panel in an unclustered setup behind NAT (any NAT) without problems,
but the clustered/load balanced version will require static NAT. Check
out wikipedia for more information on NAT Search for: “Basic NAT vs
port number translation” and it gives a good description.
If we only had one public IP, could we setup a cluster service? Would the service run on private IPs? The setup would be with one public IP and behind it, imagine five servers doing load balancing and clustering. Would this be possible?¶
Yes, one public IP is fine.
With clustering, does each server need its own InterWorx license?¶
Yes, since each server (Cluster Manager and Node) has a copy of
InterWorx Control Panel installed, each needs its own unlimited domain
license.
Can I add and remove Nodes to the cluster transparently?¶
Yes. The end user will not see any difference, assuming the resource load on the cluster would not overwhelm the remaining nodes.