Secure Global Desktop Administration Guide > Arrays, servers and load balancing > What is an array?

What is an array?

In Secure Global Desktop, an array is a collection of Secure Global Desktop servers that share configuration information.

Arrays have these benefits:

Users and emulator sessions are load-balanced across the array. To scale to more users, simply add more Secure Global Desktop servers to the array.
With more than one server, there's no single point of failure. You can decommission a server temporarily with the minimum of disruption to your users.
Configuration information, including all the objects in your organizational hierarchy, is replicated to all array members. All array members have access to all information.

You can use Array Manager to add and remove servers from the array, to change the primary server, and to configure both array-wide and server-specific settings.

Array structure

An array contains:

One primary server. This is the authoritative source for array-wide information, and maintains the definitive copy of the organizational hierarchy.
Any number of secondary servers. Information is replicated to these servers by the primary server.

A single, "standalone" server is considered to be the primary server in an array with no secondary servers.

Secure Global Desktop servers in an array may run different operating systems. However, all the array members must run the same version of Secure Global Desktop.

Related topics
Introducing Array Manager Setting up and dismantling a Secure Global Desktop array Understanding webtop and emulator sessions Introducing webtop and emulator session load balancing The tarantella array command The tarantella config command