In the former chapters, we went through the most interesting aspects of Java Enterprise development. Once you are ready to rollout your applications, it is mandatory that you guarantee your customers a responsive and reliable environment. This requirement is usually achieved through application server clustering.
JBoss clustering is not the product of a single library or specification, but rather a blend of technologies. In this chapter, we will first introduce some basics about clustered programming. Next, we will quickly move to the cluster configuration and setup, which will be required to deploy some clustered applications.
Here is a preview of what we will learn from this unit:
What clustering is, and how JBoss AS implements it
Setting up a standalone and a domain of application server clusters
Developing clustered Java EE 6 applications in order to achieve load balancing and high availability