GBASE Financial Application Guide 8 | Operations Monitoring & Management

Published on 2024-07-04

To help financial institutions make informed decisions when selecting distributed analytical database products, and to promote successful deployment practices in the financial industry, GBase, under the guidance of the Beijing Financial Technology Industry Alliance, has compiled the "GBase 8a Financial Application Guide". The Guide provides an in-depth overview of the entire deployment process for distributed analytical databases, from selection planning, development and design standards, data security and high availability, to operations optimization. It also presents representative deployment cases of GBase 8a MPP Cluster at national policy banks and major state-owned banks.

GBase will release a series of articles to share and interpret the contents of the Guide, hoping to provide reference for financial users in database selection and to support the efficient implementation and high-quality development of technology finance. This is the 8th article in the series, introducing the operations monitoring and management of database systems.

In the financial industry, systems often have large clusters, high data security requirements, and strict business continuity demands. GBase 8a MPP Cluster provides comprehensive operations monitoring and safeguards to ensure business and data security.

 

1. Cluster Monitoring

The smooth operation of a GBase 8a cluster is critical for business and data security. GBase 8a offers the following monitoring and operations methods:

  • GBase 8a MPP Database Operations Management System: GDOM

(Suitable for unified graphical management, operations, and monitoring of single or multiple clusters)

GDOM is a comprehensive operations monitoring tool with a web-based visual interface. It monitors cluster hardware resource usage, cluster service information, and audit information, automatically analyzes this data to generate charts, and sends alerts based on user-defined alarm policies. The web interface also provides functions such as installation and deployment, cluster expansion, node replacement, version upgrades, and service start/stop.

GDOM requires a dedicated server for deployment and a separate resource repository. It can manage multiple GBase 8a clusters and provides interfaces for third-party systems to retrieve monitoring information, making it easy to integrate with users' own monitoring platforms.

  • Command-line Operations Monitoring Tool: gcadmin

(A compact and flexible tool with comprehensive operations functions)

gcadmin is a built-in command-line tool for managing and viewing cluster information, requiring no separate installation. It provides internal GBase 8a cluster information such as service status, node data distribution rules, failed SQL executions, and cluster lock information, but does not support hardware resource monitoring. gcadmin only displays information for the cluster to which it belongs; it cannot view information from other clusters. Command usage and syntax can be viewed via help information.

  • Cluster System Tables

GBase 8a system tables contain information such as node service status, data distribution across nodes, hardware resource usage, current SQL execution status, historical SQL execution details, and data loading status. With numerous detailed system tables, querying them requires SQL statements, making them more suitable for developers. However, frequent queries on system tables can impose a load on the cluster and may affect performance.

In addition to the above monitoring tools, GBase 8a provides daily inspection report templates and commonly used inspection scripts for project operations.

 

2. Expansion and Contraction

Consider expanding or contracting a GBase 8a cluster in the following scenarios:

  • During the planned usage period of GBase 8a, if unexpected business growth or data volume appears, causing performance degradation or insufficient disk space;

  • After the planned usage period, if GBase 8a needs to continue operating with maintained performance, requiring new planning and cluster expansion according to the new plan;

  • During GBase 8a cluster operation, business adjustments may require scaling down the VC node size for reduced services, or scaling up for increased services;

  • The node expansion function supports online dynamic scaling of cluster nodes, allowing any number of nodes to be added at once, with support for pause, resume, and cancel during the expansion process.

Cluster expansion principles and process description.

Expansion Flowchart

 

3. Node Replacement

Scenarios for Using Node Replacement in GBase 8a Cluster

During GBase 8a cluster operation, if a node server experiences an environmental failure (typically hardware failure) and becomes unavailable for a short time, a working server is needed to replace the problematic server in the cluster.

Node replacement is performed online, supports interruption and recovery, and has no impact on business.

GBase 8a MPP Cluster node replacement process.

Node Replacement Flowchart

 

4. Version Upgrade

GBase 8a continuously improves existing features and adds new ones to meet market and user demands, with ongoing product updates and version iterations. The upgrade function provided by GBase 8a is primarily used to update the cluster from the currently running version to a newer, higher version.

Upgrade principles and process.