Hazelcast Clusters

This chapter describes Hazelcast clusters and the ways cluster members use to form a Hazelcast cluster.

Hazelcast Cluster Discovery

A Hazelcast cluster is a network of cluster members that run Hazelcast. Cluster members (also called nodes) automatically join together to form a cluster. This automatic joining takes place with various discovery mechanisms that the cluster members use to find each other. Hazelcast uses the following discovery mechanisms.

• Multicast Auto-discovery
• Discovery by TCP
• EC2 Cloud Auto-discovery

Each discovery mechanism is explained in the following sections.

NOTE: After a cluster is formed, communication between cluster members is always via TCP/IP, regardless of the discovery mechanism used.