Cluster questions

[Richard Liddiment]

I am looking to use clustering to create a high availability solution. I am
very new to the subject so bear with me if my questions sound a bit dumb! I
understand the basics in that I will have two identical servers connected to
a shared disk array. However, there are a couple of issues I just can't get
my head round!

If one of the servers is the domain controller and that goes down, how is
the second server going to function if it can't find the domain controller?
If you have a third PC as the domain controller doesn't that defeat the
object i.e. your cluster will fail if the domain controller goes down
anyway.

If the workstations are reading data from server1 and server1 fails how are
they going to suddenly be able to read the data from server2 - if for
example the data path is \\server1\mydatabase?

If the cluster is used as a web server, won't you have to change to change
the web address if one of the machines fails because the one that takes over
has a different IP address?

Or is this just what is magically handled by clustering?!

Richard

 

[JT]

Richard,

You should use domain controllers as cluster server. Your domain should be
set up outside of MSCS, and you should have multiple DC's in your
environment to handle the load and redundancy. If you're a small shop and
you don't have a bunch of DC's lying around and you need to make one of the
cluster nodes a DC, then you should make both cluster nodes Daces.

You can read the following for more details about setting up cluster nodes
as domain controllers:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281662

For your second question, you should not point users to \\server1. Instead,
you should create a "virtual server" within MSCS which will have its own IP
and Network name. That way when the server fails over, clients will continue
to access \\virtualserver1 even though the resource will be on Server2. Same
idea with a web server.

You might want to check out the following KB article for more helpful tips
on setting up a cluster:

Microsoft Cluster Service Installation Resources
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q259267

Hope this helps.

JT