Adaptive Server Editions

SAP^® offers various editions of Adaptive Server Enterprise.

There is a change to the license quantity used by per-CPU and per-chip license types. Adaptive Server version 15.7 SP100 and later checks out the same number of licenses as the number of cores on the machine (or chips, depending on the license type) regardless of any configuration settings. This is a correction from earlier versions of the server, in which if Adaptive Server was licensed per CPU or CPU chip, the requested license quantity was reduced if the max online engines configuration parameter was set to fewer than the number of CPUs on the machine.

The Adaptive Server installer automatically installs a SySAM license server if you choose the full installation option or enter a served license when prompted for the SySAM license key. You can also install the license server using the installer's custom installation option. See the Sybase Software Asset Management Users Guide to generate licenses.

The Cluster Edition allows a single installation, a private-mode installation, and multiple installations of Adaptive Server to operate on multiple nodes as a shared-disk cluster environment with a single-system view. Each server runs on a separate node called a "server instance" or "instance." You can use a single configuration file to determine the configuration for all instances (a shared installation), or each instance can use a separate configuration file (a private installation).

The Cluster Edition allows you to scale workloads using multiple physical and logical clusters. If an instance in a cluster fails, one or more of the still-running instances take over the workload of the failed instance. The cluster determines the instance to which each client connects. If one instance is overloaded, the cluster balances the load by shifting clients to other, more available instances.

The primary advantages of the Cluster Edition include:

Improved availability – applications can continue to run as long as a single cluster member remains viable, even after several others have failed.
Simple management – data is shared by all instances and does not require data repartitioning through cluster membership changes.

The Cluster Edition provides a distributed architecture. Internode communication takes place via network interconnects, rather than via shared memory. Applications that minimize internode messaging yield the best performance in the Cluster Edition environment.

Single-System Presentation

The Cluster Edition supports a single-system presentation. That is, multiple instances that make up the cluster appear to clients as a single system. New client technologies allow clients to connect logically to a cluster while remaining physically connected to individual instances. This logical connection allows Adaptive Server to redirect clients to various instances in the cluster and to dynamically provide clients highly available failover data to clients.

Workload Management

The Cluster Edition workload manager can customize workload management and failover for your business applications so that each performs most efficiently. The logical cluster provides individualized working environments.

Installation Options

The Cluster Edition offers these configurations:

Shared installation – requires a shared file system created using a Network File System (NFS) or a cluster file system. A shared installation supports a single $SYBASE installation directory, Adaptive Server home directory, and server configuration file.
Private installation – does not use a shared file system. A private installation supports a separate $SYBASE installation directory, Adaptive Server home directory, and server configuration file for each instance.

See the Cluster Users Guide for detailed information about the Cluster Edition.