Cluster set up using LAN

[Alan NGUYEN]

Have anyone got any experience setting up the Tru64 cluster using LAN instead of Memory Channel ?
Is it OK to set up the cluster on 2 AS1200 ?

Thanks

[Vladimir Fabecic · Accepted solution]

Hello Alan
I have experience with LAN interconnect. Everything depends on application needs. If your applications use failover mode then even fast ethernet will do the job. I would recomend gigabit ethernet. If you are using RAC, Memory Channel is must have.
Is it OK to set up the cluster on 2 AS1200 ?
Why not? These are old machines, but everything depends on application needs.

[Ivan Ferreira]

There is a whitepaper that recomends that lan interconnect should be used only for "failover" style clusters.

We had a lot of problems with lan interconnect, there was a incompatibility between the network adapter, the switch and the autonegotiation for the gigabit ethernet. This caused problems at boot time to form the cluster.

Probably the problems could be solved if I had more time and patiente, but finally we choosed to use memory channel and avoid these problems.

If you use lan interconnect, ensure that the switch ports are set to passthrough.

[Vladimir Fabecic]

In your case you will not have problems with network switches because you have just two machines. You will use cross-over cable for cluster interconnect.
By the way, I installed two clusters with LAN interconnect and they are working fine.