Windows 2003 Clustering Setup

Windows 2003 Clustering Setup Consulting Services

Clustering is installed by default for Windows 2003 Server. You only need to configure a Cluster by launching Cluster Administrator or script the configuration with Cluster.exe. In addition, third-party quorum resources can be pre-installed and then selected during Server cluster configuration, rather than having additional resource specific procedures. All Server cluster configurations can be deployed the same way.

Benefits

• Easier Administration – you no longer need to provide a media CD to install Server clusters.
• No reboot – you no longer need to reboot after you install or uninstall Cluster Service.

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Windows 2003 Goals of Clustering

Windows Server 2003 has an optional quorum resource that does not require a disk on a shared bus for the quorum device. This feature is designed to be built in to larger end-to-end solutions by OEMs, IHVs and other software vendors rather than be deployed by end-users specifically, although this is possible for experienced users. The scenarios targeted by this new feature include:

• Geographically dispersed clusters. This mechanism provides a single, Microsoft-supplied quorum resource that is independent of any storage solution for a geographically dispersed or multi-site cluster. NOTE: There is a separate cluster Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) for geographic clusters.
• Low-cost or appliance-like highly available solutions that have no shared disks but use other techniques such as log shipping or software disk or file system replication and mirroring to make data available on multiple nodes in the cluster.

  

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Majority Node Set (MNS) Clusters

Windows Server 2003 provides no mechanism to mirror or replicate user data across the nodes of an MNS cluster, so while it is possible to build clusters with no shared disks at all, it is an application specific issue to make the application data highly available and redundant across machines.

Benefits

• Storage Abstraction – frees up the storage subsystem to manage data replication between multiple sites in the most appropriate way, without having to worry about a shared quorum disk, and at the same time still supporting the idea of a single virtual cluster.
• No Shared Disks – there are some scenarios that require tightly consistent cluster features, yet do not require shared disks. For example, a) clusters where the application keeps data consistent between nodes (e.g. database log shipping and file replication for relatively static data), and b) clusters that host applications that have no persistent data, but need to cooperate in a tightly coupled way to provide consistent volatile state.
• Enhanced Redundancy – if the shared quorum disk is corrupted in any way, the entire cluster goes offline. With Majority Node Sets, the corruption of quorum on one node does not bring the entire cluster offline.

 

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