4. Creating a True Server Cluster
With the background out
of the way, it's time to create your first server cluster. Creating a
new cluster involves inspecting the potential members of the cluster to
ensure they meet a solid baseline configuration and then starting the
cluster service on each so that resources are managed across the
machines and not individually on each machine.
To create a true server cluster, follow these steps.
From the Administrative Tools folder, open the Cluster Administrator console.
The
Open Connection to Cluster screen will appear automatically. From the
drop-down list at the top of the box, select Create New Cluster. Click
OK.
The
New Server Cluster Wizard starts. Click Next from the introductory
screen, and the Cluster Name and Domain screen appears. Enter the domain
name and the name for the new cluster. Click Next to continue.
The
Select Computer screen appears. Here, type in the name of the computer
which will become the first member of the new cluster. Click Next.
The Analyzing Configuration screen will appear, as shown in Figure 4.
Here, exhaustive tests will be done and the current configuration of
the computer you identified in step 4 of this section will be examined
for potential problems or showstoppers to its entrance into a cluster.
The resulting progress bar will turn either green (indicating that no
show-stopping errors were found) or red (indicating problems that must
be rectified before continuing). You can examine the list in the middle
of the screen for a brief explanation of any item encountered, or select
the item and then click the Details button for a more thorough
explanation. Correct any problems, and then click Next.
The
IP Address page will appear. On this screen, enter the IP address that
other computers will use to address the cluster as a whole. Click Next
when you've entered an address.
The
Cluster Service Account page appears. Here, specify either an existing
account or a new account which will be given local administrator
privileges over all machines that are members of the new cluster. Click
Next when you've specified an account.
The
Proposed Cluster Configuration screen appears next which summarizes the
choices you've made in the wizard. Confirm the selections you've
entered, and then click Next to build the cluster and add the first node
to the new cluster.
Once the cluster has finished building, click Finish to end the wizard.
The new cluster is active,
and the first member has been added to it. When the wizard exits, you're
dumped back into the Cluster Administrator console, this time populated
with management options and the new cluster node. A sample console is
shown in Figure 5.
5. Adding a Node to an Existing Cluster
For a single-node
cluster, you can leave your settings alone and the resulting cluster
will function just fine. You can use this configuration in a testing
environment, but it really provides no fault-tolerant functionality in
production use. To get a more dependable, reliable solution, you need to
move to single quorum device clusters and add a new node to the
cluster. Then, resources and applications can fail over to other nodes
in the cluster.
To add a new node to an existing cluster, follow these steps:
Within
the Cluster Administrator console running on any current node of the
cluster, connect to the cluster and then right-click the cluster name in
the left pane. From the New menu, select Node.
The Add Nodes Wizard appears; click past the introductory screen and the Select Computers screen appears, as shown in Figure 6. Here, enter the names of any computers you'd like to join to the current cluster. Click Next when you're finished.
The Analyzing Configuration screen will appear, as shown in Figure 7.
Here, exhaustive tests will be done and the current configuration of
the computer you identified in the previous step will be examined for
potential problems or showstoppers to its entrance into a cluster. The
resulting progress bar will turn either green (indicating no
showstopping errors were found) or red (indicating problems that must be
rectified before continuing). You can examine the list in the middle of
the screen for a brief explanation of any item encountered, or select
the item and then click the Details button for a more thorough
explanation. Correct any problems, and then click Next.
The
Cluster Service Account page appears next. Here, specify either an
existing account or a new account which will be given local
administrator privileges over the new member of the cluster. Click Next
when you've specified an account.
The Proposed Cluster Configuration screen appears next, as shown in Figure 8,
which summarizes the choices you've made in the wizard. Confirm the
selections you've entered, and then click Next to add the node to the
existing cluster.
Once the cluster has finished adding
the new node, click Finish to end the wizard.
The machine in question is now a member of the cluster.
