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Server Clustering with Windows Server 2008 R2
Server Clustering with Windows Server 2008 R2
Server Clustering with Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Failover Clustering Solutions
Clustering is a key technique to achieve maximum fault tolerance. A cluster is a collection of computer systems responsible for running a shared set of applications and services. The systems in the cluster are interconnected through hardware and software in such a way that in case any component in the cluster stops functioning, the workload will "failover" to, or be assumed by, another system in the cluster without a disruption of service.
Failover clustering clearly has an advantage in increasing network availability in the case of a hardware breakdown, but it also allows non-disruptive system maintenance for environments that have no time window when key applications such as email or web commerce can be taken offline without hurting business. For geographically dispersed environments, multi-site clustering provides insurance against natural disasters such as earthquakes or hurricanes.
The Enterprise and Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2008 include significant improvements in failover clustering such as easier deployment, management, and migration; enhanced support for multi-site clusters; improved security architecture and quorum models; stronger authentication and encryption; and more efficient tools for backup and recovery. Windows Server 2008 R2 offers even more advanced support for clustering through the addition of features that make clusters more secure, more available, and easier to manage. Major clustering improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2 include Live Migration support through Cluster Shared Volumes, enhanced support for IPsec security, and expanded cluster storage.
Decision Consultants offers a full range of Windows Server 2008 Server consulting services and Windows Server 2008 R2 expertise and can assist businesses of any size to design, implement, and maintain cost-effective failover clusters that provide high availability, security, and performance and that add significantly to the business value of your information network.
New and Improved Features of Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering
The failover clustering capabilities incorporated into Microsoft Windows 2008 Server represents more than a decade of Microsoft's experience in developing clustering technology. The Enterprise and Datacenter Editions of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 offer a number of new clustering services and capabilities including:
Windows Server 2008 includes Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0, a new easy-to-use interface for controlling network resources. The new Failover Cluster Administration Console is task oriented rather than cluster resource oriented. To make a file share highly available, for example, the administrator no longer has to create a group, a disk resource, an IP address resource, Network Name, configure IsAlive/LookAlive, configure preferred services, and set dependencies. Instead, the wizard simply asks for the Network Name. You do not necessarily need to assign an IP address because Windows Server 2008 failover clustering now supports DHCP.
Windows Server 2008 also supports remote management via the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT). You can manage multiple clusters throughout the organization from a single MMC. Windows Server 2008 Failover Clusters are also fully scriptable with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).
Windows Server 2008 clustering includes a cluster Validate Tool, an expanded and integrated version of the ClusPrep tool released for Windows Server 2003 server clustering. As a part of the cluster configuration process, Validate runs a set of tests to determine whether the selected servers, cluster networks, and storage meet the requirements for failover clustering. Validate performs an inventory that includes BIOS information, operating systems, adapters, drivers and software updates; verifies cluster topology for redundancy; checks IP configuration details; and makes sures that storage can correctly handle simulated cluster actions. The Validate Tool helps prevents configuration errors, which is one of the most common problems encountered in failover clusters.
Windows Server 2008 offers a Server Core installation option that supports failover clustering and provides a bare-bones environment for running distinct server roles. By limiting the services that need to be maintained and updated, this minimalist installation reduces support and management expense and enhances security by shrinking the server's attack surface. Server Core supports a variety of important roles including DHCP server, file services, print services, DNS server, Active Directory Domain Services, streaming media services, and Windows Server 2008 virtualization.
Improvements in storage and backup offer increased stability and availability for failover clusters. Support for both Master Boot Record (MBR) and GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks allows the creation of disks greater than 2 terabytes. Built-in logic initiates self healing automatically as long as the system can find either the disk signature in the Master Boot Record or the SCSI inquiry page 0x83 data (VPD).
Support for Storage Area Networking (SAN) solutions is improved for storage hardware that supports SCSI-3 SPC3–compliant SCSI commands for persistent reservation/release. All multi-path solutions are Microsoft Multipath I/O (MPIO). The Device Specific Module (DSM) provided by the storage vendor is responsible for sending PR registration information down each path to the storage system. Closer integration with Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) makes the backup process easier. Failover clustering in Windows Server 2008 has its own VSS.
With Windows Server 2008, x64-based failover clusters support up to 16 nodes in a single cluster, as opposed to the maximum of 8 nodes in Windows Server 2003. Windows Server 2008 failover clusters also now support GPT disks, which use the GUID partition table (GPT) disk partitioning system. A GPT disk allows up to 128 primary partitions and a much larger volume size. In comparison, MBR disks can support up to four primary partitions and a volume size limit of up to 2 terabytes. For greater reliability, GPT disks offer replication and cyclical redundancy check (CRC) protection of the partition table. The increased number of nodes plus support for GPT disks dramatically extends the scalability of larger volumes in cluster environments.
Windows Server 2008 introduces a new failover clustering quorum model that incorporates a combination of Microsoft's earlier shared disk and majority node set models. In Windows Server 2008 failover clustering there are now four ways to establish a quorum:
The quorum mechanism in Windows Server 2008 no longer requires a shared storage resource for the cluster to function. Quorum now refers to a number of votes which must equate to a majority of nodes. All nodes and disk resources have a vote. This avoids failure points in the old model, which required the disk to be available at all times so that disk failure meant cluster failure.
Windows Server 2008 failover clustering incorporates a new security model that enhances its security and dependability. Changes include:
Windows Server 2008 failover clustering includes a new networking model. Major improvements include:
Administrators no longer have to stretch virtual local area networks across the wide area network to support geographically dispersed servers on different subnets. Failover cluster nodes can now be located on different subnets. Individual cluster nodes can be placed on separate, routed networks, which allows IP Address and Network Name resources to come online when services and applications fail over to remote nodes.
Cluster IP address resources can now get their addressing from DHCP servers as well as from static entries. The cluster heartbeat mechanism has moved from a UDP broadcast health checking mechanism to a UDP unicast communication that it uses a Ping-like Request-Reply process. This allows better security and more reliable packet sequence numbering. Windows Server 2008 supports IPv6 IP Address resources and IPv4 IP Address resources either alone or in combination in a cluster. Clustering also supports 6-4 and Intra-site Automatic Tunneling Addressing Protocol (ISATAP).
Major enhancements to Failover Clustering available with Windows Server 2008 R2 include:
For more details about the improved Failover Clustering support provided by Windows Server 2008 R2, visit Decision Consultants’ Consulting Services for Windows Server 2008 R2.
How Decision Consultants Can Help You Benefit from Microsoft's Failover Clustering
Decision Consultants’ Microsoft-certified consultants can help you evaluate the business benefits of Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 failover clustering, set up pilot programs to validate performance and compatibility for your key workloads, develop and execute a cost-effective deployment plan, train your IT staff to manage your clustering environment, and provide ongoing consulting and technical support services remotely or at your site. Decision Consultants can also provide comprehensive Help Desk services.
Decision Consultants’ service professionals can also help you migrate from Windows Server 2003 cluster nodes. This migration requires experience because these two types of nodes cannot share the same cluster, which eliminates a rolling migration.
Decision Consultants’ CISM, CISA, GIAC, and CISSP certified security engineers can assess the protection offered by your cluster environment and can recommend and implement affordable improvements. Decision Consultants’ security experts can also help you design, document, and test business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
Other High Availability Solutions Provided by Decision Consultants' Experts
Decision Consultants’ Microsoft and Cisco-certified consulting experts can assist your company to build an affordable, fault-tolerant IT architecture that addresses critical challenges covering a broad array of networking solutions and operations such as:
Decision Consultants’ business continuity engineers can show you how to create a workplace recovery strategy so you can restore IT functionality in the event of an IT system disaster. Decision Consultants can assist you to define a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy that incorporates scheduled disaster recovery evaluations and testing. Decision Consultants’ Microsoft and Cisco-certified professionals can also help you create an affordable, zero-downtime network solution that takes into account availability issues involving a broad array of infrastructure technologies and processes. To read more, see Disaster Recovery Consulting Services.
Decision Consultants’ Cisco-authorized IT professionals can help you design an economical, fault tolerant Internet connection architecture that can achieve 24x7 Internet access via a broad array of fault tolerant Internet access technologies including fault tolerant BGP, automatic fail-over, and redundant Internet Service Providers. Decision Consultants can provide CCIE professionals to help you apply the most advanced technology for fault tolerant Internet connectivity to build an economical, completely redundant Internet interface with automatic failover and other features to deliver non-stop Internet availability. To read more, see Fault Tolerant Internet Connection Architecture.
Virtualization technology is central to any current disaster recovery solution. Virtual servers can be provisioned, updated, copied, and recovered rapidly and easily, providing a level of versatility for achieving high-availability almost impossible to meet with traditional physical servers. Decision Consultants can assist your company to design and implement a virtualized solution based on Microsoft Windows Hyper-V, which offers advanced business continuity features that include transparent system backup and live migration. Microsoft Windows Hyper-V can save much of the time needed for scheduled service, switching to emergency backup sites, and restoring business-critical functions. For more information, see Windows Hyper-V Virtual Server Consulting Services.
Decision Consultants provides high availability load balancing consulting covering network load balancing, load balanced applications, LAN/WAN infrastructure routing, and content dispatching products such as F5 Networks 3DNS. Fault tolerant load balancing technologies for which Decision Consultants offers consulting expertise include Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008 Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Access Suite and Presentation Server, Cisco CSS, Cisco Distributed Director and ACNS, and F5 Networks 3-DNS. To read more, see High Availability Load Balancing.
Decision Consultants’ Data Center professionals can help you select zero-downtime data centers that match the particular needs of your business. High availability off-site data centers are particularly appealing to small organizations due to of their affordability and convenience compared to pursuing a do-it-yourself approach. Attempting to build an in-house data center with even a minimum degree of fault tolerance is too expensive for the majority of small companies. Decision Consultants can show you how to reap all the benefits of 24x7 Internet data centers by offering a complete range of engineering and support services. To learn more, see High-Availability Data Centers Expertise.
Decision Consultants’ branch office connectivity professionals can help small organizations create non-stop interoffice connectivity by means of fully redundant system architectures with transparent failover. Decision Consultants’ Cisco-certified CCIE engineers can design and deploy high-availability Inter-office networks supported by zero-downtime EIGRP network routers or non-stop OSPF configurations of Cisco routers. Decision Consultants can show you how multi-path connections and transparent fail-over offers affordable non-stop interoffice networking. For more information, see Failsafe Interoffice Connectivity.
Decision Consultants’ expert Data Protection Manager consultants can assist your company to develop an effective disaster recovery plan, design a cost-effective non-stop IT architecture, deploy a Microsoft DPM-based recovery system, comprehensively test your system, train your IT staff or regular service providers how to maintain Microsoft DPM, or provide complete information technology outsourcing including off-site housing of Microsoft Data Protection Manager machines in Decision Consultants’ data center. To read more, visit System Center Data Protection Manager Consulting Services.
The CRISC certification program was initiated by ISACA in 2010 to verify an IT professional's ability to design, deploy, and support information system controls to reduce risk. Decision Consultants offers the services of a CRISC-certified consultant to help your company to create and execute a business continuity or disaster recovery plan that follows leading practices identified by CRISC and crafted to match your company's risk tolerance, business goals, and IT budget. For details, see CRISC-qualified IT risk mitigation experts.
Why Choose Decision Consultants for Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning Solutions?
Since Decision Consultants is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and offers high-level application consulting for a wide range of small business applications, Decision Consultants can assist clients to arrive at complete information technology solutions that maximize the business value of your information system. As a Registered Partner for Cisco, Decision Consultants can provide the services of certified engineers and specialists with expertise in architecting, configuring and managing infrastructure environments built on Cisco products. The depth and breadth of Decision Consultants’ IT experience and Decision Consultants’ appreciation for the needs of small companies make Decision Consultants a great resource for building and maintaining a cost-effective, high-availability information system.
How You Can Get in Touch with Decision Consultants Experts for High Availability Network Support
If you wish to contact Decision Consultants about engineering assistance for non-stop infrastructure, call 1-800-993-9400 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it