Question & Answer
Question
Is there an option to use something other than IP packets for the cluster heartbeat between the nodes?
Answer
The Heartbeat process is performed by the Topology Services daemon (cthats) within the RSCT (Reliable Scalable Cluster Technology) component.
RSCT's primary cluster heartbeat functionality is network based, that is, IP packets sent via a UDP port, by default 12347/udp. There is no alternative to the network based heartbeat.
However, there is an additional grace period that can be used in the event the heartbeating fails. This involves sending ICMP pings to its neighbors and waiting the specified grace period for a response. If the response is received, the node is not considered gone, just slow to respond to the regular network heartbeat.
Lastly, there is also a disk heartbeat mechanism. Again this does not replace the network based heartbeat ... it would be used in conjunction with the network heartbeat functionality.
Was this topic helpful?
Document Information
Modified date:
24 June 2019
UID
swg21675877