Clustering Windows 2003 Servers

Clustering Windows 2003 Server Consulting Services

Windows Server 2003 clustering consists of two different technologies: Server Cluster and Network Load Balancing (NLB). Each of these technologies can be used to provide high availability for different types of services. Server Cluster is primarily used to provide availability for mission critical applications through fail-over. Database, ERP or CRM, OLTP, file and print, e-mail, and custom application services are typically clustered using Server Cluster. NLB is used to provide high availability for applications that scale out horizontally, such as Web servers, proxy servers, and other services that need client requests distributed across nodes in a cluster. 

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Server Cluster Overview

Server Cluster is a dramatically improved version of the Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) component included with Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. When you deploy Server Cluster, you first configure it between two and eight servers that will act as nodes in the cluster. Then you configure the cluster resources that are required by the application you’re clustering. These resources may include network names, IP addresses, applications, services, and disk drives. Finally, you bring the cluster online so that it can begin processing client requests.  

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Network Load Balancing (NLB)

A clustering technology included with Windows Server 2003 is NLB. NLB clusters don’t use a quorum, and so don’t impose storage or network requirements on the cluster nodes. If a node in the cluster fails, NLB automatically redirects incoming requests to the remaining nodes. If you take a node in the cluster offline for maintenance, you can use NLB to allow existing client sessions to be completed before taking the node offline. This eliminates any end-user impact during planned downtime. NLB is also capable of weighting requests, which allows you to mix high-powered servers with legacy servers and ensure all hardware is efficiently utilized.

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