High-Availability Vocabulary (part I)

• High-Availability Cluster - A group of computers, whose purpose is to increase the up-time of services, by making sure that a failed machine is automatically and quickly replaced by a different machine, with little service disruption.
• Cluster service - A computer service that is managed by the cluster software. The cluster service includes all resources required to deliver the service - the data (e.g. file systems), virtual IP addresses, processes...
• Cluster Group - a group of servers that run the cluster software, and together handle a set of services.
• Cluster node - A server that is a member of a cluster group.
• High-Availability Cluster Software - an application that manages a high-availability cluster.

Originally written by guy keren