Designing Enterprise Solutions with Sun™ Cluster 3.0

Arbitration Schemes

Arbitration is the act of deciding. Many forms of arbitration occur in computer systems. I/O devices arbitrate for access to an I/O bus. CPUs arbitrate for access to a multiprocessor interconnect. Network nodes arbitrate for the right to transmit on the network. In clusters, arbitration determines which nodes are part of the cluster. Once they are part of the cluster, arbitration determines how the nodes host the services. To accurately predict the behavior of the cluster and services in the event of a failure, you must understand the arbitration schemes used in the cluster.

Asymmetric Arbitration

Asymmetric arbitration is a technique commonly used when the priority of competing candidates can be established clearly and does ...