Sahara Cluster Statuses Overview

All Sahara Cluster operations are performed in multiple steps. A Cluster object has a Status attribute which changes when Sahara finishes one step of operations and starts another one.

Sahara supports three types of Cluster operations:

• Create a new Cluster
• Scale/Shrink an existing Cluster
• Delete an existing Cluster

Creating a new Cluster

1. Validating

Before performing any operations with OpenStack environment, Sahara validates user input.

There are two types of validations, that are done:

• Check that a request contains all necessary fields and request does not violate

any constraints like unique naming and etc.

• Plugin check (optional). The provisioning Plugin may also perform any specific checks like Cluster topology validation.

If any of validations fails, the Cluster will still be kept in database with Error status.

2. InfraUpdating

This status means that the Provisioning plugin performs some infrastructural updates.

3. Spawning

Sahara sends requests to OpenStack for all resources to be created:

• VMs
• Volumes
• Floating IPs (if Sahara is configured to use Floating IPs)

It takes some time for OpenStack to schedule all required VMs and Volumes, so Sahara wait until all of them are in Active state.

4. Waiting

Sahara waits while VMs’ operating systems boot up and all internal infrastructure components like networks and volumes are attached and ready to use.

5. Preparing

Sahara preparers a Cluster for starting. This step includes generating /etc/hosts file, so that all instances could access each other by a hostname. Also Sahara updates authorized_keys file on each VM, so that communications could be done without passwords.

6. Configuring

Sahara pushes service configurations to VMs. Both XML based configurations and environmental variables are set on this step.

7. Starting

Sahara is starting Hadoop services on Cluster’s VMs.

8. Active

Active status means that a Cluster has started successfully and is ready to run Jobs.

Scaling/Shrinking an existing Cluster

1. Validating

Sahara checks the scale/shrink request for validity. The Plugin method called for performing Plugin specific checks is different from creation validation method.

2. Scaling

Sahara performs database operations updating all affected existing Node Groups and creating new ones.

3. Adding Instances

State similar to Spawning while Custer creation. Sahara adds required amount of VMs to existing Node Groups and creates new Node Groups.

4. Configuring

State similar to Configuring while Cluster creation. New instances are being configured in the same manner as already existing ones. Existing Cluster VMs are also updated with a new /etc/hosts file.

5. Decommissioning

Sahara stops Hadoop services on VMs that will be deleted from a Cluster. Decommissioning Data Node may take some time because Hadoop rearranges data replicas around the Cluster, so that no data will be lost after tht VM is deleted.

6. Deleting Instances

Sahara sends requests to OpenStack to release unneeded resources:

• VMs
• Volumes
• Floating IPs (if they are used)

7. Active

The same Active as after Cluster creation.

Deleting an existing Cluster

1. Deleting

The only step, that releases all Cluster’s resources and removes it form database.

Error State

If Cluster creation fails, the Cluster will get into Error state. This state means the Cluster may not be able to perform any operations normally. This cluster will stay in database until it is manually deleted. The reason of failure may be found in Sahara logs.

If an error occurs during Adding Instances operation, Sahara will first try to rollback this operation. If rollback is impossible or fails itself, then the Cluster will also get into Error state.