Groups loading on wrong node in a cluster

[Brian]

I'm new to clustering. Created a two node cluster (AD
Domain), and created two additional groups to the Cluster
group. I set one additional group to have node 1 as a
preferred host and the other to node 2. When the cluster
boots, the quickest booting (exact same hardware) creates
the cluster and starts all groups. As node 2 comes
online, it joins the cluster but doesn't take
it's "preferred" group. Everything stays on node 1. I
can manually move the group if I want to. I don't know
why the group doesn't move to the preferred node once it
comes online. Any help or direction to go in would be
appriciated.

Thanks.

 

[John Toner [MVP]]

Brian,

Did you configure the "failback" values for these groups? The only time the
"preferred owner" list is used is for failback, or for failover of a 3+ node
cluster.

Regards,
John

 

[Brian]

We are not using "failback", because we want an
administrator to access the situation before rolling the
groups back. Is it not possible to tell the groups what
node I want them to start on? I assumed that the group
would start on the preferred node. Is there another way
to set the way the cluster should look when both servers
are started from a powered down situation????

Thanks again,

Brian

 

[John Toner [MVP]]

Brian,

The only way to do this automatically is to configure the failback settings.
Otherwise, during a power outage situation the first server up will be the
owner of all cluster groups.

If you want to control which server is the first to come online (highly
recommended), you could put a delay in the boot.ini so that one server boots
up X amount of seconds before the second server. I'd recommend setting one
server to boot immediately, and have the second wait 60 - 90 seconds.

Regards,
John