Chapter 12. Utilization and Placement Strategy

Table of Contents

Pacemaker decides where to place a resource according to the resource allocation scores on every node. The resource will be allocated to the node where the resource has the highest score.

If the resource allocation scores on all the nodes are equal, by the default placement strategy, Pacemaker will choose a node with the least number of allocated resources for balancing the load. If the number of resources on each node is equal, the first eligible node listed in the CIB will be chosen to run the resource.

Often, in real-world situations, different resources use significantly different proportions of a node’s capacities (memory, I/O, etc.). We cannot balance the load ideally just according to the number of resources allocated to a node. Besides, if resources are placed such that their combined requirements exceed the provided capacity, they may fail to start completely or run with degraded performance.

To take these factors into account, Pacemaker allows you to configure:

The capacity a certain node provides.
The capacity a certain resource requires.
An overall strategy for placement of resources.

12.1. Utilization attributes

To configure the capacity that a node provides or a resource requires, you can use utilization attributes in node and resource objects. You can name utilization attributes according to your preferences and define as many name/value pairs as your configuration needs. However, the attributes' values must be integers.

Example 12.1. Specifying CPU and RAM capacities of two nodes

<node id="node1" type="normal" uname="node1">
  <utilization id="node1-utilization">
    <nvpair id="node1-utilization-cpu" name="cpu" value="2"/>
    <nvpair id="node1-utilization-memory" name="memory" value="2048"/>
  </utilization>
</node>
<node id="node2" type="normal" uname="node2">
  <utilization id="node2-utilization">
    <nvpair id="node2-utilization-cpu" name="cpu" value="4"/>
    <nvpair id="node2-utilization-memory" name="memory" value="4096"/>
  </utilization>
</node>

Example 12.2. Specifying CPU and RAM consumed by several resources

<primitive id="rsc-small" class="ocf" provider="pacemaker" type="Dummy">
  <utilization id="rsc-small-utilization">
    <nvpair id="rsc-small-utilization-cpu" name="cpu" value="1"/>
    <nvpair id="rsc-small-utilization-memory" name="memory" value="1024"/>
  </utilization>
</primitive>
<primitive id="rsc-medium" class="ocf" provider="pacemaker" type="Dummy">
  <utilization id="rsc-medium-utilization">
    <nvpair id="rsc-medium-utilization-cpu" name="cpu" value="2"/>
    <nvpair id="rsc-medium-utilization-memory" name="memory" value="2048"/>
  </utilization>
</primitive>
<primitive id="rsc-large" class="ocf" provider="pacemaker" type="Dummy">
  <utilization id="rsc-large-utilization">
    <nvpair id="rsc-large-utilization-cpu" name="cpu" value="3"/>
    <nvpair id="rsc-large-utilization-memory" name="memory" value="3072"/>
  </utilization>
</primitive>

A node is considered eligible for a resource if it has sufficient free capacity to satisfy the resource’s requirements. The nature of the required or provided capacities is completely irrelevant to Pacemaker — it just makes sure that all capacity requirements of a resource are satisfied before placing a resource to a node.