mirror of https://github.com/hashicorp/consul
58 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
58 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: "intro"
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page_title: "Use Cases"
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sidebar_current: "use-cases"
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---
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# Use Cases
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At this point you should know [what Serf is](/intro/index.html) and
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the high-level features Serf provides. This page lists a handful of
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concrete use cases of Serf. Note that this list is not exhaustive by
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any means. Serf is a general purpose tool and has infinitely many more
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use cases. But this list should give you a good idea of how Serf
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might be useful to you.
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It is important to remember that all the use cases available below
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require _no centralized state_, are masterless, and are completely
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fault tolerant.
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#### Web Servers and Load Balancers
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Using Serf, it is trivial to create a Serf cluster
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consisting of web servers and load balancers. The load balancers can
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listen for membership changes and when a web server comes online or goes
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offline, they can update their node list.
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#### Clustering Memcached or Redis
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Servers such as Memcached or Redis can be easily clustered by creating
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a Serf cluster for these nodes. When membership changes, you can update
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something like [twemproxy](https://github.com/twitter/twemproxy) or your
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own application's list of available servers.
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#### Triggering Deploys
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Serf can send custom events to a Serf cluster. If you cluster your web
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applications into a single cluster, you can use Serf's event system to
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trigger things such as deploys. Just call `serf event deploy` and have
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event handlers installed on all the nodes and the entire cluster will
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receive this message within seconds and begin deploying.
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#### Updating DNS Records
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Keeping your internal DNS servers updated can be a finicky process.
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By using Serf, the DNS server can know within seconds when nodes join,
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leave, or fail, and can update records appropriately. No more stale DNS
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records, or waiting for a Chef or Puppet run to clear out the records
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within X minutes. With Serf, the records can be updated nearly instantly.
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#### A Building Block for Service Discovery
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One of the most difficult parts of service discovery is simply knowing
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what nodes are online, at what addresses, and for what purpose. An effective
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service discovery layer can easily be built on top of Serf's seamless
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membership system. Serf handles all the problems of keeping an up-to-date
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node list along with some information about those nodes. The service
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discovery layer then only needs to answer basic questions above that.
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