cluster and design questions

[John]

Hello,

We are trying to pursued the higher ups on a good back-up and
network design strategy. We are a growing company with about 80 people now.
Currently we have glorified desktops running as servers. This is working for
the moment but it's not going to last forever. If any server dies do to
hardware failure we have no redundancy in place, we do have backups and are
able to restore once the hardware issues are resolved(Like I said it's a bad
setup) I am looking at clustering as a solution.

Current scenario:

Windows 2k machine used as a website and syncing of photos from mobile
devices. All of this information resides on this server.

Questions:

1. If we implement clustering does it mirror the information from one
machine to the other. i.e. if a person syncs photos to a server will the
photos be placed on the other server that is clustered? If not how would we
achieve this?

Current scenario:

Windows 2k machine used as our email server.

Questions:

1. We are planning on getting exchange server if we put this in a cluster
does it have the ability to mirror the information between servers in the
cluster?

Any links or helpful hints or other suggestions than clustering would be
greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

John

 

[Kevin Anderson [MSFT]]

Hi John,

For your first scenario:

1. In a two node cluster you would have two machines accessing one shared
disk. Please note that this shared disk can only be accessed by one node at
a time. In the event that one of the nodes fails, the other machine would
attach to the shared disk and have access to the same data, providing fault
tolerance of that server. Typically the shared disk would be RAID 5.
2. For what your trying to accomplish you would need to use File
Replication - Check out the the KB article Q325027 - Support WebCast:
Introduction to and Administration of the File - at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325027

For your second scenario:

1. Again the Exchange database would be on the shared disk. In the event
that one of the nodes of the cluster went down, the other node would take
control of the shared disk and bring the Exchange database online.

Hope this helps.

KevinAnd [MSFT] - "This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights."

 

[John]

Kevin,

Thanks for the input. We currently have two websites(not a lot of
hits just for company use i.e. fill out timesheets etc.) and are about to
start a windows share point services server(thus all documents stored within
a SQL db), combined with an exchange server would it be advisable to put all
of these services on two beefed up clustered servers and have the files(i.e.
photos uploaded from the mobile devices) stored on a shared drive off of
another machine that has raid 5? Thanks in advance.

John

Hi John,

For your first scenario:

1. In a two node cluster you would have two machines accessing one shared
disk. Please note that this shared disk can only be accessed by one node at
a time. In the event that one of the nodes fails, the other machine would
attach to the shared disk and have access to the same data, providing fault
tolerance of that server. Typically the shared disk would be RAID 5.
2. For what your trying to accomplish you would need to use File
Replication - Check out the the KB article Q325027 - Support WebCast:
Introduction to and Administration of the File - at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325027

For your second scenario:

1. Again the Exchange database would be on the shared disk. In the event
that one of the nodes of the cluster went down, the other node would take
control of the shared disk and bring the Exchange database online.

Hope this helps.

KevinAnd [MSFT] - "This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights."

Hello,

We are trying to pursued the higher ups on a good back-up and
network design strategy. We are a growing company with about 80 people now.
Currently we have glorified desktops running as servers. This is working for
the moment but it's not going to last forever. If any server dies do to
hardware failure we have no redundancy in place, we do have backups and are
able to restore once the hardware issues are resolved(Like I said it's a bad
setup) I am looking at clustering as a solution.

Current scenario:

Windows 2k machine used as a website and syncing of photos from mobile
devices. All of this information resides on this server.

Questions:

1. If we implement clustering does it mirror the information from one
machine to the other. i.e. if a person syncs photos to a server will the
photos be placed on the other server that is clustered? If not how would we
achieve this?

Current scenario:

Windows 2k machine used as our email server.

Questions:

1. We are planning on getting exchange server if we put this in a cluster
does it have the ability to mirror the information between servers in the
cluster?

Any links or helpful hints or other suggestions than clustering would be
greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

John

 

[Kevin Anderson [MSFT]]

John,

You'll have to do benchmark testing to tell which solution is going to work
best for you.

Typically the Sharepoint front end would be on inexpensive IIS boxes
utilizing NLB (this insures high avaliability), the SQL database would be on
the backend shared disk / Cluster. You could set up Exchange on one node of
the cluster, and the SQL database on the other node. In the event that one
of the nodes fails, the corresponding service (SQL or Exchange) would fail
over to the other node. The other node would then be providing SQL services
and Exchange services, until the other node was back in production, whereas
at that time you could fail one of the services back to that node.

For your photos being uploaded, based upon your scenario, you could use File
Replication, and two servers each with their on subset of disk with RAID 5.
That would fulfill your objectives.

Hope this helps.

KevinAnd [MSFT] - "This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights."

Kevin,

Thanks for the input. We currently have two websites(not a lot of
hits just for company use i.e. fill out timesheets etc.) and are about to
start a windows share point services server(thus all documents stored within
a SQL db), combined with an exchange server would it be advisable to put all
of these services on two beefed up clustered servers and have the files(i.e.
photos uploaded from the mobile devices) stored on a shared drive off of
another machine that has raid 5? Thanks in advance.

John

Hi John,

For your first scenario:

1. In a two node cluster you would have two machines accessing one shared
disk. Please note that this shared disk can only be accessed by one

node

at
a time. In the event that one of the nodes fails, the other machine would
attach to the shared disk and have access to the same data, providing fault
tolerance of that server. Typically the shared disk would be RAID 5.
2. For what your trying to accomplish you would need to use File
Replication - Check out the the KB article Q325027 - Support WebCast:
Introduction to and Administration of the File - at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325027

For your second scenario:

1. Again the Exchange database would be on the shared disk. In the event
that one of the nodes of the cluster went down, the other node would take
control of the shared disk and bring the Exchange database online.

Hope this helps.

KevinAnd [MSFT] - "This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights."

Hello,

We are trying to pursued the higher ups on a good back-up and
network design strategy. We are a growing company with about 80 people now.
Currently we have glorified desktops running as servers. This is

working
for

the moment but it's not going to last forever. If any server dies do to
hardware failure we have no redundancy in place, we do have backups

and
are

able to restore once the hardware issues are resolved(Like I said it's

a
bad

setup) I am looking at clustering as a solution.

Current scenario:

Windows 2k machine used as a website and syncing of photos from mobile
devices. All of this information resides on this server.

Questions:

1. If we implement clustering does it mirror the information from one
machine to the other. i.e. if a person syncs photos to a server will the
photos be placed on the other server that is clustered? If not how

would
we

achieve this?

Current scenario:

Windows 2k machine used as our email server.

Questions:

1. We are planning on getting exchange server if we put this in a cluster
does it have the ability to mirror the information between servers in the
cluster?

Any links or helpful hints or other suggestions than clustering would be
greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

John