HP Serviceguard was the very first solution for high availability clustering software on the market, and now – after nearly fifteen years of continuous innovation from HP Labs – has over 400,000 licences installed worldwide.
Serviceguard uses resource virtualisation to ensure that critical applications, databases, or services are continually up and running. Users typically don't care which server they run their application on – they just want to make sure that application is running. Serviceguard hides the details of which server an application is actually running on at any given time, which means it can move applications between servers on the fly. Serviceguard can move applications automatically, such as in response to a failure, or at your command, such as when your Network Administrator wants to install a new LAN adapter.
Serviceguard runs on HP-UX 11i HP Integrity or HP 9000 servers, which are called nodes. The nodes can be physical (such as an Integrity Blade) or virtual (such as an Integrity Virtual Machine). These nodes are networked together in a high availability cluster. The nodes communicate with each other very frequently in order to ensure that all nodes are fully operational at all times. If a specific node doesn't respond, Serviceguard can automatically move all of the applications that node was running on to another active node in the cluster.
To have Serviceguard monitor an application, you identify all of the things that application relies upon to keep running. An application and its dependent components are grouped together in a package. Serviceguard will monitor the entire package for any faults related to hardware, software, operating system, virtualisation, storage, network and so on. When a failure is detected, Serviceguard gracefully shuts down the application, restarts it on an available server in the cluster, connects it to the appropriate storage device, and resumes normal operations – all in mere seconds to minimise any impact to the end user.
Serviceguard helps you protect your business or organisation with resilient operations – mitigating and managing business and IT risks, and maximising the availability of IT to drive business results. Serviceguard Solutions assess and address the financial, business, and operational impacts of downtime. You will be able to define, implement, and manage solutions that help to secure the infrastructure, protect data and information, and align your business continuity objectives to your ever-evolving business requirements.
Reducing downtime can help you retain customers, deliver your services on time, create new opportunities to drive additional revenue and help you remain competitive. With Serviceguard Solutions, HP ensures that you see quick and quantifiable return from IT investment while restructuring your operations to survive and thrive.
Serviceguard is available as part of the HP-UX 11i v3
High Availability and Data Centre Operating Environments, or can be purchased separately.
