Web application clusters

Businesses face increasing expectations from a global market requiring new services that fit consumers' immediate needs with a high degree of reliability, scalability and performance. Traditional architectures can sometimes have trouble meeting these expectations, so more fault-tolerant architectures are needed to fulfil these needs. This article introduces the concept of computer clustering for a Web application environment. It describes the advantages of computer clustering, different types of clusters and common configurations for computer clusters which ensure reliability, improved performance and scalability for business applications. Steps are provided for the configuration of a computer cluster for Web applications using BEA Systems' Weblogic Server 8.1 and Sun's Java Systems Web Server 6.1.