5.6 A Final Note on Configuring a Tru64 UNIX System

In our example presented in this chapter, we installed and configured a Tru64 UNIX server for the purpose of deploying TruCluster Server. Our system was relatively uncomplicated in terms of what it does and how it needed to be configured. We highly recommend that you completely install and configure everything you need, from a systems perspective, on your standalone Tru64 UNIX system first before you start your installation and configuration of TruCluster Server. Why? Consider this scenario: if you configure C2 security on the standalone system, at the time you create the cluster, it will be propagated to each member. However, if you configure C2 security after the cluster is created, you must reboot each member in order to enable the new security level.

If there are third party software applications that you need to install for your users, we recommend that you install, configure, and test these applications on the standalone Tru64 UNIX system. If the application requires the TruCluster Server software be installed before it will allow itself to be installed cluster-aware, then wait until the cluster is built. As you are testing these applications, do as much characterization of the application as possible – characterize how they startup and shutdown, where they write data (including log files), and how their licensing is performed. After the cluster is built and configured, test these applications again and determine if these applications can be multi-instance or single-instance. In other words, can multiple instances of an application run on each node of a cluster at the same time or can only one instance of the application run on the cluster? This will determine whether or not you must use Cluster Application Availability (CAA) to control these applications. For more information on CAA, please see Chapters 23 and 24.