Clustered File Server

[keogk]

I am building 2 Server 2008R2 VM's that I want to make into a fail over Cluster.

This will be my first cluster. It seems that each box gets a IP and they share a virtual ip when they are clustered. When they are up and I create the share do I point to the virtual IP or can I use the servers name. If I go bu name does the cluster get a virtual name? If not how does it fail over to the 2nd node ?

What I am doing is building a server that will house the home folders for our domain. We do not home folders now so this will be new. I figured 1 server should handle it ( They only need 100MB each) then if 1 server fails the cluster will fail over to the other server and the students will not loose there shares.

[TronXP]

when you create a service such as a file service on a cluster the service will get an ip and a name (mine is CLUSTFS01). You create a share on the this and call it by this name (CLUSTFS01\SHARE). When a node fails the service will then move to the next node.

[zag]

Sounds awesome, but does it work?

 

I've always had a 2nd file server as a fail-over with all the data copied to it at the end of each term. It works well in an emergency but is an annoying job to do every 3 months.

[mthomas08]

I my self am currently looking in to this, we just had to order another 10 laptops on top of our 40 already purchased this financial year and another 60 desktops for 2 new mobile rooms. We had breached 800 pc's/laptops and with an additional 70 thats close to 900.... And just yesterday came in to find our main home area server had a failed Hard Drive. Lucky its RAID so technically i should be able to plug the new one in when it arrives and hay presto.

 

Anyway - I have just done some googling, microsoft and looked at some info about Clustering. From my indications what |Tron has said is spot on correct. It apparently is VERY EASY on 2008 R2 - but frankly it was a microsoft site that said it. I just know there will be something wrong. Fingers next year i get the budget for servers because this is the route I am going one way or the other.

[TronXP]

I have been using clustered file servers on my Novell systems for around 5 years and it has been brilliant and it does work. We are making the big leap this summer (now) into Server 2008R2 and I have a clustered file services up and running and from our tests so far it seems to work just as in the novell system. It was quite easy to set up and the cluster validation process helps you sort out any problems before you even start setting it up.

[keogk]

I set it up yesterday. Took about 3 hours. It was very easy. Next one I do should be a lot faster. My setup was a tad more difficult because my server R2's were also Vsphere VM's. With the Vmware instructions and the MS it went OK.

The only thing I was unclear on was when to format the disk I presented from my san. Also did not know I needed 2 1 for quorum and 1 for cluster data.

Next I think I will try a 2 node 1 psychical , 1 virtual or 2 virtual 1 physical 3 node.

I failed over a few times today with no issues and plan on putting a few high use low priority shareson it to test it out next week.

[zag]

Hows the performance? Our file server is pretty heavy on usage.