The Red Hat Network
Satellite can be configured in multiple ways. Select one method depending on
the following factors:
- The total number of client systems to be served by the Red Hat Network Satellite.
- The maximum number of clients expected to connect concurrently to the Red Hat Network Satellite.
- The number of custom packages and channels to be served by the Red Hat Network Satellite.
- The number of Red Hat Network Satellites being used in the customer environment.
- The number of Red Hat Network Proxy Servers being used in the customer environment.
The rest of this chapter
describes possible configurations and explains their benefits.
Single Satellite Topology
The simplest configuration
is to use a single Red Hat Network Satellite to serve your entire network. This
configuration is adequate to service a medium-size group of clients and
network.
The disadvantage of using
one Red Hat Network Satellite is that performance will be compromised as the
number of clients requesting packages grows.
Multiple Satellite Horizontally Tiered Topology
For very large networks, a
more distributed method may be needed, such as having multiple Red Hat Network
Satellites in a horizontally tiered configuration and balancing the load of
client requests.
It is possible to
synchronize content between Red Hat Network Satellites using the rhn-satellite-exporter and satellite-sync
-m commands. Alternatively, the Inter-Satellite Sync 2 feature is
designed for this purpose.
Additional maintenance is
the biggest disadvantage of this horizontal structure.
Satellite-Proxy Vertically Tiered Topology
An alternative method to
balance load is to install Red Hat Network Proxy Servers below a Red Hat
Network Satellite. These Proxies connect to the Satellite for RPMs from Red Hat
Network and custom packages created locally. In essence, the Proxies act as clients
of the Satellite.
This vertically tiered
configuration requires that channels and RPMs be created only on the Red Hat
Network Satellite. In this manner, the Proxies inherit and then serve packages
from a central location.
