Using Serviceguard Extension for RAC, 5th Edition, June 2007

Introduction to Serviceguard Extension for RAC
What is a Serviceguard Extension for RAC Cluster?
Chapter 118
Figure 1-2 Group Membership Services
Using Packages in a Cluster
In order to make other important applications highly available (in
addition to the Oracle Real Application Cluster), you can configure your
RAC cluster to use packages. Packages group applications and services
together; in the event of a service, node, or network failure, Serviceguard
Extension for RAC can automatically transfer control of all system
resources in a designated package to another node within the cluster,
allowing your applications to remain available with minimal
interruption.
There are failover packages, system multi-node packages, and
multi-node packages:
The typical high availability package is a failover package. It usually is
configured to run on several nodes in the cluster, and runs on one at a
time. If a service, node, network, or other package resource fails on the
node where it is running, Serviceguard can automatically transfer
control of the package to another cluster node, allowing services to
remain available with minimal interruption.