Network Planning

Every EXASolution cluster node is wired to at least two distinct network types:

  • Private network, used for cluster-internal communication.
  • Public network, used for client-access connections.

It is also possible to have additional networks for purposes of fail safety or link bonding. In addition to private and public networks, the cluster nodes can be connected by a separate interface for out-of-band management.

For more information about the network setup that will cover the performance requirements of most customers, refer to the Minimum Network Setup section.

Private Network Requirements

Cluster-internal communication takes place over the private network. The following principles apply:

  • Isolation

    • It is essential that every private network is fully separated from every other network. No traffic must pass in or out and only the dedicated interfaces of the cluster nodes must be wired to this network. It is crucial that a cluster never exchanges traffic with private networks of other clusters.

  • Directness

    • The private network is used to boot and configure the nodes, to constantly exchange vitality and configuration information, and to synchronize the database payload. Thus the nodes must be directly connected to the layer 2 network (VLAN) and traffic must not be filtered.

  • Network Management

    • The private network is managed through the cluster administration interface. IP addresses are assigned automatically through cluster-internal DHCP from a reserved, fixed address space.

Public Network Requirements

Public networks are used by clients to access the database instances (ODBC, JDBC, EXAplus) and the administration interfaces. The IP addresses for a cluster must belong to the same network subnet.

Clusters may share a public network as long as the IP addresses differ. If the servers are equipped with out-of-band management interfaces, it is easiest to make them available from the public network (layer 3) and to integrate them in the EXAoperation web interface of the cluster.

If you plan to use EXA2EXA to load data from one database to another, you also require a connection string that is consecutive. In this case, IP addresses for a cluster must be assigned consecutively and without gaps.

For example:

10.1.50.10 = license server
10.1.50.11 = db node 1
10.1.50.12 = db node 2
10.1.50.13 = db node 3

Example: Typical Network Setup

The following is an example of a typical network setup:

In this example, each node has three network interfaces: private network, public network, and a network for out-of-band management (in this case, iDRAC).

For more detailed information on preparing the network for Exasol, refer to the Prepare the Environment section in the Installation Guide.