What is a cluster?
The cluster is a group of servers or computers connected together, which may perform similar functionality in the system. These systems are normally connected to each other through high speed Ethernet. Cluster systems are used where quick processing or system availability is required. Some of the examples where clusters are highly used are the financial sector, banking, security areas, and so on. The following figure shows the J2EE containers clustered in the environment:
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Note
Cluster topology varies from environment to environment, based on the application requirements.
Benefits of clustering
There are many advantages of clustering in a middleware environment. It also depends on which cluster techniques we are using. We will discuss the various advantages of clustering:
Scalability: It gives freedom to the system architect to accommodate future enhancements for applications and servers. Suppose the web application currently has 100 concurrent users, and at the time of an...
