Solaris Cluster software provides the framework and API required to make applications highly
available on Solaris OS. The software application, designed for solaris, does not have to
be modified to use Solaris Cluster API. Instead, you write an agent which acts as the interface
between Solaris Cluster core software and the application. Solaris Cluster comes bundled with a
rich portfolio of agents, also called data services, which make applications highly available on
Solaris Cluster. These agents, designed and developed by the Solaris Cluster Engineering team,
have undergone rigourous testing by the internal Quality Assurance engineers.
Agents for several software products are available in Solaris Cluster 3.1 and the Solaris Cluster 3.2
releases. For details on the supported applications and how to configure and administer the agents
for the supported applications please refer to the Data Service administration guides, available
at the following location:
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/1574.1/
Writing Custom Data Services
-----------------------------
If an agent for any software application is not already available then, you can write an agent
for that application by using the Data Service Development tools available in the product.
First, check if the application can be made highly available on Solaris Cluster software. The
following chapter in the Solaris Cluster Data Services Developer's Guide lists everything you need
to verify your application's cluster readiness.
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2972/6n57ngipe?a=view
Most of the applications can be integrated with Solaris Cluster software right out of the box.
Sometimes you might have to enhance the application to be able to integrate with Solaris Cluster.
Once the application is ready for integration, use the Solaris Cluster Agent Builder to
generate an agent for you. The Solaris Cluster Agent Builder not only generates the code for you
but also generates the Makefiles to compile the code and build a nice Solaris package. This
generated package can be easily installed by using the pkgadd utility. The Solaris Cluster Agent
Builder can generate agent source code in C programming language or ksh. The following chapter
in the Data Services Developers Guide explains how to use the Agent Builder to develop an agent.
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2972/6n57ngisa?a=view
The Solaris Cluster Agent Builder and the API library is available as a package, SUNWscdsdev,
which can be downloaded on to your desktop. Download the SUNWscdsdev package on your desktop and
follow the instructions in the Developers guide to generate and compile an agent for the Solaris
Cluster Software.
If you do not want to write a seperate agent for your application, you can use the Generic Data
Service (GDS) agent to make your application HA on Solaris Cluster software. Generic Data Service,
as the name suggests, is a generic agent designed by Solaris Cluster Engineering. GDS takes as an
input, scripts to start, stop, validate, and probe an application. Instead of writing a separate agent
for your application, you just write scripts to start, stop, validate, and probe your application
and supply these scripts as extension properties to the GDS resource at the time of creation. The
following chapter in the Data Services Developers Guide explains how to use GDS to make applications
Highly Available on Solaris Cluster.
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The Solaris Cluster Agent Builder can be downloaded from the following location:
http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=45b160e5
To test the agent, the Solaris Cluster software has to be installed and configured. A single node cluster
can be configured to test an agent. The Solaris Cluster 3.2 Software and the Solaris Cluster agents can
be downloaded from the following location:
http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=4581ab9e
Also, check out http://blogs.sun.com/SC for some cool tips and other information straight from the
Solaris Cluster engineering organization.