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creating a cluster environment


gem-in-eyez
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want to create a cluster environment for both a windows and linux environment.

 

Was reading some articles and it appears that I either need a SAN or a scsi shared drived with a y connector so that the shared drive can be seen as a local disk.

 

My question is, can I use a 2rd pc that has a shared resources mapped to the cluster nodes so that when they failover they can access the drive still as though it was a local drive?

 

so far I have not been able to find proper linux documentation that explains the whole procedure thouroughly but the windows version was found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techi...lustersteps.asp

 

If you can find me the equiv to the windows version, but for linux I would be grateful.

 

either way all documentations state that a SAN or Shared SCSI Bus is required for a shared drive and for the quorum drive.

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For performance, yes you'd need something with direct-attached storage, or san. San would be expensive though.

 

Direct attached storage, requires that the storage device has multiple scsi connections, so that it can be attached to the scsi card in each of the servers.

 

Otherwise, going back to real basics, you'd be using Windows shares across the network, and that's definitely not the best way to go about it, but would work pretty much I would have though.

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Ok so For a company that relies on performance and all, it would be their best interest to acquire a SAN or NAS...by the way is there really much of a difference between the 2 or is it just a naming convention thing?

 

And for the latter a shared drive, would then be ideal just for getting a cluster environment up and running for lab purposes?

Reason is because I have done searches on ebay for San & Nas and for the NAS I did find some solutions that were simple and affordable but basically they were hard drives in units that were able to connect via usb to a workstation or to a router/hub.

 

And this concept relates to both a linux and windows environment?

 

Last Q.... I read an article from windows for using their vm software where in the tutorial they were able to create 2 - 3 cluster nodes with a shared drive and quorum drive. Now is this feasible to work with physical servers? reason I ask is because the idea I now have is to have my main server (cluster1) run with the services and then have the other server (instead of being cluster2 - called vmserver1...) run a vmware server (vmcluster2) that is in cluster with cluster1. that way should I have really big issues with cluster1 I have it fail over to vmcluster2 with 0 downtime and when I can afford to bring it down perform a quick backup of it and then can try to get the main cluster back up and running. Cuz when I test the failover... I want to emulate various failures. and with the vmware I think this lil tool will save me alot $$$ on physical hardware...and I can throw it on any physical system that I can support it.

So if this can work then I would also have a simple xp pc run as a quorum and shared scsi drive.

 

What do you think? Also bro....how long have you been in to IT again? And all your system are all linux based? no windows at all?

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SAN's are more expensive because they have far more hardware involved - I don't know a lot on it, I read a lot about it when I did a HP sales exam but have kind of forgotten it all :P.

 

A NAS is just one single unit that connects to an ethernet switch. It won't be as fast as a SAN but it's still good enough. Just try to connect to a gigabit switch if you've got one, for extra performance. Not only that, stay away from the Maxstor NAS. I had one of these, and it wouldn't work as a NAS attached to a switch. I had to have it directly connected in the end to a server nic card via crossover cable. But I had gigabit between the server, so it didn't matter too much.

 

I'd go for the NAS unless you can justify the expenditure of a SAN. I don't know about the VM thing with cluster and shared drives. I've clustered with VMware machines but for routing connections from one VM machine to two other servers to load-balance.

 

I've been in IT since 1993, and most of it has been Windows-based and Novell NetWare-based. Been doing Linux since I joined this forum back in February 2005. And if I can help it, all my systems are Linux. They are all Linux at home, with the exception of my laptop for supporting my fathers Windows-based office network. My laptop at work has Linux, but Windows in case I really need to use it - which is extremely rare.

 

I only use Windows if I *have* to, or because a client dictates this is what they want.

 

My website (link in sig) has some info on my experience, etc, although not updated any of this with Linux as of yet. My main reason, is I bought another domain name - linuxsolutions.org of which I'll be using this for all my Linux stuff. The rest of my website below, is family stuff anyhow, so going to separate it all out.

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