By Lionel Gibbons | July 01, 2014 | Amazon EC2, Bright Cluster Manager, Management, automation
You may not be using a cluster manager to help you administer your cluster today, and that's understandable. Many of us learned to build clusters from the ground up — setting up hardware, compiling software, and creating configuration files in vi. It's only natural that many administrators have developed a do-it-yourself ethos that leads them to avoid using an integrated solution like a cluster manager.
There's nothing wrong with DIY. In fact there are some real benefits. Doing it yourself gives you a solid understanding of how your system works, but when you have to scale a cluster up or down, doing things the DIY way can get old fast. Errors in configuration files can become a bear to track down, and maintenance can be time consuming. And what about the rest of your team? Does your entire staff have the right set of skills to keep things humming along if you're not available?
Before you dismiss cluster managers out of hand, consider the benefits they offer. Many have discovered that a cluster manager can be a life saver. Here are some features to look for:
Those are some of the guidelines we used in designing our product. Bright Cluster Manager provides everything you need to deploy, monitor, and manager clusters of any size:
If you'd like to talk about how Bright Cluster Manager can help you, please contact us.