_InstallGuideDataCenter_beforeyoubegin
Clustering requirements
To run Confluence in a cluster you must:
- Have a Data Center license (you can purchase a Data Center license or create an evaluation license at my.atlassian.com)
- Use a supported external database, operating system and Java version
- Use a load balancer with session affinity and WebSockets support in front of the Confluence cluster
- Have a shared directory accessible to all cluster nodes in the same path (this will be your shared home directory). This must be a separate directory, and not located within the local home or install directory.
- Use OAuth authentication if you have application links to other Atlassian products (such as Jira)
Supported platforms
See our Supported Platforms page for information on the database, Java, and operating systems you'll be able to use. These requirements are the same for Server and Data Center deployments. See Clustering with Confluence Data Center for important hardware and infrastructure considerations.
We also have specific guides and deployment templates to help you running Confluence Data Center in AWS or Azure. Check them out to find out what's required.
Terminology
In this guide we'll use the following terminology:
- Installation directory – The directory where you installed Confluence on a node.
- Local home directory – The home or data directory on each node (in non-clustered Confluence this is simply known as the home directory).
- Shared home directory – The directory you created that is accessible to all nodes in the cluster via the same path.
- Synchrony home directory - The directory where you configure and run Synchrony from (this may be on a confluence node, or on its own node)
At the end of the installation process, you'll have an installation and local home directory on each node, and a single shared home directory (a total of 5 directories in a two node cluster) for Confluence plus directories for Synchrony.