Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Advanced Server Clustering Question

0 helpful
9 replies

by bobby gillette

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I haven't delved into clustering using Win2k Advanced Server, so I thought I'd post and ask a couple of questions...
We'd like to cluster two sizeable servers to replace some aging hardware, and consolidate the files from 3 servers onto one Win2k AS, then cluster it for redundancy. My main question is this, do the servers need to run identical hardware (ie processor, RAM, etc) or do I simply need to ensure they run the same amount of disk space? Any help would be appreciated ;)

9 replies

by bobby gillette

I've read Microsoft's whitepaper on Clustering, both for "simple" clustering as well as network load balancing as well. I've located all the hardware I would need to complete the job, just not too sure how to go about setting up the cluster...

by maximk

So to answer your questions:
1. It is considered Best Practice to run identical hardware.
2. So it is also considered Best Practice to ensure they have the same amount of LOCAL disk space.
Because you have a shared disk Windows cluster, you will have the exact same amount of shared disk space by definition.
You will need to place your shared files on the shared disks to be able to fail over the resources to the other node. This means you need to have enough disk space available on your shared disks to accomodate your current shares, your forcasted growth as well as some spare room to be sure you don't run out of space.

This discussion is closed to new replies.