Can Windows Server 2008 standard edition have failover clustering feature?

Cool!! Can you also think of any other programs?

If you are looking at clustering a particular product, such as Exchange or SQL Server, there are a number of third-party products you should take a look at for performing clustering and high availability.

DoubleTake is the most common. However, you can also use XOSoft's WanSync product (http://www.ca.com/us/products/product.aspx?id=8232). It supports pretty much the same list of products as DoubleTake - Exchange, SQL Server, IIS, Windows File Servers and so on.

-Matt

Cool! But does microsoft have anything like this? (Remember, this is for failover from a primary domain server to a secondary domain server with both running win server 2008 std.)

Microsoft don't have any such solution - they just push the Clustering Route with Server 2008 Enterprise machines.

>> primary domain server to a secondary domain server

Are you talking about Domain Controllers and Active Directory? If so, there's no need to buy into any third-party software for failover and high availability of DCs. You get this natively in Active Directory, even on Server 2008 Standard. In fact, running any Domain Controller in any form of cluster is not supported.

An Active Directory environment is multi-master - in other words, MOST operations can take place against any Domain Controller. It is simply a case of promoting multiple servers as DCs. You'd then make them Global Catalogs and DNS Servers. The workstations need to have AT LEAST 2 of these servers configured as DNS Servers (through DHCP, hopefully). That way, if anything goes down, they can quickly resolve and use one of the other DCs for Active Directory lookups and authentication.

The only thing to be careful of are the FSMO roles. These define 5 separate tasks which can ONLY be performed at one DC at a time, for Active Directory architectural reasons. These would generally be held by a single DC in a single-domain forest. If that DC dies and you won't be bringing it back online, you'd have to simply clean it up from Active Directory and 'seize' these roles to another DC. AD will then continue working as usual.

-Matt

Fine! But exactly how do you "clean it up" from the AD? And exactly how do you "seize" those roles to another DC. I tried disconnecting the secondary server and putting it on its own network. When I went into the AD, every time I tried to change the FSMO roles, the action failed and the software prompt stated that in order to change the FSMO role it had to contact the primary server first in order to do so. (This is why I resorted to trying to get failover software.)

Hello tigermatt!

Ok well I've gotten my hands on a Double-Take installation and I'm now trying to configure it. In its Application Manager window I can detect the domain (root) and both servers, but when I try to connect even to the server where the DT applicatiion is installed on I get the Error: 10061 (I well know it a connectivity error) Further playing around with the program states the the Double-Take service is not working on the server. Could it be that Double-Take 5 (my version is 5.0.0.2662 and the latest I believe is 5.1077, but I don't think that should matter much) is not yet Vista/Server 2008 technology complient? (I'm using win server 2008 Std.) Do you have any suggestions on what may be wrong??

By the way, it detects the domain (root) plainly in the DT Application Manager window, but the servers are only detected on a network drop down listing in the Full-Server Failover Manager window and not in the same DT Application Manager window (and there is still no successful connection there either, just and error message that DT server is not running on the server in question). The error message from the DT Application Manager window explicitely reads "An error occurred while determining the access level of the server: servername: DT Error: 10061" and I can't find anything on the Internet which explicitely has this particular error message. Can you help me?  

(Or could it be that I have not installed enough server features of the win server 2008 std. installation involved here!)

DoubleTake is certainly a product which will be able to do what you intend, but I'd address the issues with it directly to their Technical Support. Those are the guys who will help you get the product configured correctly and so it integrates properly with your network.

-Matt

Oh my god! After installing the older version of Double Take 5 on my standby server (and I just now found out the server 2008 compliancy was not included until last year;  my version is earlier than that), the Active Director went out on it!. Both servers ping each other and can still see each others DNS servers. The DNS servers look ok i guess and everything is still working fine on the primary server. When clicking the standby server's Active Directory Users and Computers, as well as Active Directory Sites and Services, the red error message comes stating " Naming information cannot be located for the following reason: The server is not operational." on the standby server that I installed DT 5 on. I immediately removed the DT 5.0 software after seeing all this and I'm still getting these errors from the standby server AD! Again, I can ping both servers on each other and I can even still see the primary server's CRM 4.0 server page on the now AD problematic standby server's web browser! Any ideas on what may be wrong here?? (I hope I don't have to reinstall everything on the standby server in order to correct this!!)

I hope you have a good backup of the server, in the event that is the only route you can follow to restore it to a good, working state.

As I said before, I think this is something you need to take up with DoubleTake. Third-party products lock into the system in ways inconceivable to many, so their technicians are the people who need to resolve this issue.

-Matt

Well it's not that hard. It's only the standby server and that's not hard to reinstall. It takes about a day or so. It's the primary server that's a real headache and I'm sure glad I had just enough sense not to install it there!! By the way, any suggestions on where in can get a dirt cheap (and legit) copy of win server 2008 enterprise version?? (Or is such a feat possible?)

You won't be able to get a very cheap version of Enterprise Edition. The best I could possibly think of would be if you were a charity or educational institution, in which case, you could open a Volume Licensing agreement in the name of the organisation and receive a significant cost reduction.

In other cases, it'll be the full cost of the software, I'm afraid.

-Matt

I've chosen your solution to be accepted. However, there's a solution I've yet to investigate. We do have SBS 2008 and Essential Business Server (and both are std. editon I believe). I´ve looked at SBS 2008 std. ed. and could not see the failover feature that is included with the enterprise version of Win server 2008, but could it possibly be added easily (such as through a download or something). Also, I've done some reading on Essential Business Server and it seems too heavy for our hardware here. We only have two servers with one being no more than a quad CPU end station being used as the failover standby. The primary server is our main one and is a fully flegded hardware server made by CHIEFTEC. It has 8 processors but each is at a mere 1.6 Ghz. (Microsoft's Essential Business Server web site plainly states that the minimum is 1.5 and EIGHT hard drives.) To your knowledge, does MS EBS have failover capability included (it most likely does but I'm not certain) and does it have a slimmed down (or "core") installation option for a marginal hardware environment?

SBS and EBS don't have any form of failover clustering or backup per se. EBS does have multiple servers, and has multiple Domain Controllers as standard. Simply installing the Domain Controller role gives resilience in Active Directory as standard.

However, the other features (such as Exchange) are not clustered and are single-server only. The product is designed such that it cannot and should not be installed in a cluster as it will break the default configuration.

For clustering, you NEED Server 2008 Enterprise, or a vanilla Server 2008 Standard & Exchange 2007 domain, with software like DoubleTake. An SBS or EBS network with clustering is not how it is meant to be configured -- and probably isn't supported.

-Matt

Thanks a heap for your expert comment! It saved me some time investigating on these two complicated program platforms. (I installed SBS 2008 on a test pc and wondered why the failover feature was absent. You just now told me why!) All we're looking for is for another server to simply take over if the primary one is stolen or badly damaged for some reason such as in a fire. The secondary server should step in automatically if and when this happens and from what you've just now told me, EBS's AD "resillence" from its Domain Controller role does provide this. As for Exchange 2007, we don't use it! It's just there because the MS CRM 4.0 installation mandates it or something like it. Provided the AD resillence of EBS's domain controller role function can provide this, can EBS be successfully used with such a marginal hardware arrangement as ours mentioned above?

Also, please be aware that the secondary (standby) server has to automatically step in (or at least be ready to step in) if the primary server is gone for some reason. The secondary server will be kept at another location and will be linked through a VPN setting on our business network's main router. It has its own MSSQL 2008 std and Exchange 2007 installations as well as its own MSCRM 4.0 installation. Its just like the primary server (software program wise) and will be ready to step in if something happens to it. (The secondary server's MSSQL db's for its CRM 4 installation are actively mirrored form the primary server MSSQL 2008 db's and both the primary and secondary server have a working CRM 4.0 :5555 port. As a result, we have two working CRM 4.0 :5555 ports in the domain (with redundant informaton of course).

The other server in an EBS deployment acts as a Domain Controller, and with proper configuration it can automatically failover if one server is damaged or taken offline.

However, if you won't be using a lot of EBS's features, it's probably way over the top for you, and will put too much demand on your hardware. If you just want Active Directory resilience (I don't know about SQL Server), and don't need Exchange, you would be much better purchasing 2 Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition licenses and installing a vanilla domain.

-Matt