Want to run an Active/Active W2KAS cluster (SQL Active/Passive (Preferred Node=1), COM+ Active/Passive (Preferred Node=2).
Questions:-
1. For SQL cluster:-
a. It has been suggested in some forums that a separate SQL instance on 2nd node is required if Active/Active – (even if SQL itself not Active/Active?!) …is this necessary/pre-requistite ?
b. Do you need a separate db and/or disk resource for 2nd node instance ? (if yes then how do you synchronise ?)
2. For COM+/SQL:-
a. I have seen some (vague) references to needing separate disk physical resource for differing apps (e.g. 1 x RAID-1 pair on shared for SQL (or 2 x RAID-1 pair if ans to 1a is yes) and 1 x RAID-1 pair for COM+ – can anyone elaborate/confim/deny ?
b. I have seen article about COM+ Clustering but it seemed to indicate use of Network Load Balancing rather than clustering – can you use either for COM+ ?
c. Following on from the above, we may want to use simple Active/Passive for SQL and NLB for COM+ – is it acceptable to mix and match these technologies on the same servers ?
d. Have I got the above wrong – just seen another term ‘CLB’ Component Load Balancing ?!
3. Deployment
a. Have used PQ Deploy Center in the past (and Ghost a little bit) to deploy mainly PCs – although have used for servers – what is best way/best practice to deploy several clusters (each on different domain) ? Options as I see them:-
i) Just image of plain OS and manually do rest
ii) Image of servers after cluster service installed/configured (not sure of issue this will present upon restore of image)
iii) Image of servers after cluster service AND applications installed/configured
….more options ?
4. Quorum disk
Articles say not to let Quorum physical disk be used for anything else but as Quorum is only 500Mb and minimum disk is 18 or even 36Gb disk….what a waste! – can you reasonably use remainder of disk for anything at all ?
TIA
TomHass