6.4.2.Sample Configuration

We will take a minimal example of a fault tolerant setup with 4 server processes, grouped in two groups of two mutually mirroring servers. The word host here refers to a single server process. How these are distributed over physical hardware is a separate question. Each host (i.e. server process) has exclusive control over its database files. Two processes may not share files.

create cluster DUP default group ("Host1", "Host2"), group ("Host3", "Host4");

Each group clause in the statement defines a set of mutually replicating, interchangeable processes. The cluster is operational as long as at least one process for each group is available. If all the processes in one group are down, the tables created in the cluster will not be available in their entirety. Even if some fragment of a table were unavailable, the remaining fragments are still available for transactions that concern only them.

For all tables or indices created in a cluster with fault tolerance, partitioning is applied for determining which group of the groups listed in the create cluster statement gets which individual entry. After this, all the hosts that make up the group are guaranteed to hold a copy of said entry at the commit of each transaction.

Regardless of the definition of logical clusters, there are global functions at the level of the physical cluster which need to be replicated for fault tolerance. For these functions include resolving distributed deadlocks and allocating sequence ranges. See the discussion of sequences in the cluster programming guide for more on this. These global functions are handled by a single process called the master. To keep a standby master that is synchronously kept in sync with the first master, one can define multiple master processes, as follows:

Master = Host1
Master2 = Host2

These lines in the cluster.ini files of the servers constituting the cluster mean that if Host1 is available, it will perform the functions of the master and if it is not available, these functions go to Host2. If both are available, then Host1 does the work and synchronously updates Host2 before returning the results to the requesting host.

To create a table or index in a specific logical cluster, one uses the cluster option in alter index or create index. For example:

create table T1 (row_no int primary key, string1 varchar);
alter index  t1 on t1 partition cluster DUP (row_no int (0hexffff00));
create index string1 on t1 partition cluster DUP (string1 varchar (5));

These statements define that t1 will be kept in duplicate copies spread as declared for logical cluster DUP. Partitioning can be altered only when the table concerned is empty. To make an existing non-replicated table into a replicated one, use alter table rename, as follows:

create table T1 (row_no int primary key, string1 varchar);
alter index  t1 on t1 partition (row_no int (0hexffff00));
create index string1 on t1 partition  (string1 varchar (5));

The table is created in the default logical cluster, which by default is not replicated. Now fill the table with a large amount of data. Then do the move over to replicated storage with minimum effect on overall server availability, follow the below steps:

drop index string2;
alter table t1 rename t1_old;

create table T1 (row_no int primary key, string1 varchar);
alter index  t1 on t1 partition cluster DUP (row_no int (0hexffff00));
create index string1 on t1 partition cluster DUP (string1 varchar (5));

log_enable (2);

This turns on row autocommit and disables logging for the session. This is necessary, as otherwise the statements below will abort due to running out of rollback space if the table is large. Disabling logging also saves some extra time.

insert into t1 select * from t1_old;
delete from t1_old;
drop table t1_old;

First deleting the contents and then dropping the table shortens the global atomic section that corresponds to dropping the table. Otherwise all servers would be unavailable also for the time of deleting the content, which might take long.

Finally:

cl_exec (checkpoint');

Makes the operation permanent. All the above work would be lost in the event of any failure since it was done without logging.

log_enable (1);

Restores default transaction and logging behavior to the session.

If T1 were very large, e.g. 100's of G or more, then one could do checkpoint after each step so as not to keep a full copy of all indices of t1 in the old and new versions simultaneously. Dropping an index or deleting rows actually frees the space at the next checkpoint. One could also write a procedure for copying the table in parts and run many such copies in parallel for different parts of the table. This would have obvious advantages for moving terabytes of data.