What does split-brain mean?

Protect your data integrity: The solution to the split-brain problem in high-availability clusters.

A situation where both nodes take full control and all functions without being able to communicate with each other is called “split-brain”. In a high-availability cluster, this can lead to serious problems as the cluster nodes in this situation could potentially access and modify shared data simultaneously, leading to data inconsistencies and other serious problems.

The negative consequences of a split-brain situation in an HA cluster can be effectively avoided by the [Collax Fencing Device]({<relref “/articles/fencing”>}}). This fencing procedure isolates the cluster node that is no longer accessible, preventing it from continuing to access shared data, such as that on a shared storage system. In this way, the integrity of this data is preserved and possible data inconsistencies are prevented.