cnxmax
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Basic Questions about Windows 2003 Server Clustering Concepts
Windows 2003 Server
SQL Server 2005
I'm looking for a way to provide some more reliability for two servers that I run. One is a web server, the other is a database server, both running Windows 2003 server.
These servers run an intranet web application that is access by about 50 employees. It would be quite a big problem for me if the application went down for a few hours.
So, I'm interested in server clustering. I'm hoping some can provide an articulate answer to the following questions. NOTE: I don't need to know HOW to setup a cluster. At this point I just need to make sure it can do what I need. I'm not looking for a bunch of links to vast clustering info, although a link to something that answers these basic questions would be helpful:
- If I have a web application that runs really well on a 2003 server and SQL 2005 server, do I have to do anything special to make that application support clustering? Or does the OS itself make everything work well in IIS and SQL Server?
- If I have two servers clustered together and I add a third, would that increase the scalability of the application, or does it only provide more redundancy?
- If I have two servers clustered together, and the power supply fails on one and the server crashes, does the application function on the first server without any downtime, or do I have to react somehow to make the clustered counterpart take over?
You can probably tell I'm not an expert in this concept. I'm just looking for some basic answers to make sure clustering is the right solution before I start deciding how to implement it. Thank you for your help.
SQL Server 2005
I'm looking for a way to provide some more reliability for two servers that I run. One is a web server, the other is a database server, both running Windows 2003 server.
These servers run an intranet web application that is access by about 50 employees. It would be quite a big problem for me if the application went down for a few hours.
So, I'm interested in server clustering. I'm hoping some can provide an articulate answer to the following questions. NOTE: I don't need to know HOW to setup a cluster. At this point I just need to make sure it can do what I need. I'm not looking for a bunch of links to vast clustering info, although a link to something that answers these basic questions would be helpful:
- If I have a web application that runs really well on a 2003 server and SQL 2005 server, do I have to do anything special to make that application support clustering? Or does the OS itself make everything work well in IIS and SQL Server?
- If I have two servers clustered together and I add a third, would that increase the scalability of the application, or does it only provide more redundancy?
- If I have two servers clustered together, and the power supply fails on one and the server crashes, does the application function on the first server without any downtime, or do I have to react somehow to make the clustered counterpart take over?
You can probably tell I'm not an expert in this concept. I'm just looking for some basic answers to make sure clustering is the right solution before I start deciding how to implement it. Thank you for your help.
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Clustering IIS tends to be pretty simple since all the data is sitting on the shared cluster storage anyway; Node1 fails, Node2 starts serving up from the same directory.
That said, you should also consider Network Load Balancing for your IIS front-end - NLB allows multiple active hosts that will respond to client requests in a round-robin fashion. NLB only works well for fairly stateless applications, though, so depending on the specific needs of your environment it may or may not be appropriate: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/0baca8b1-73b9-4cd2-ab9c-654d88d05b4f.mspx?mfr=true
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/6ac4a6ba-1c0c-46be-8c6a-2c2e0e567e981033.mspx
That said, you should also consider Network Load Balancing for your IIS front-end - NLB allows multiple active hosts that will respond to client requests in a round-robin fashion. NLB only works well for fairly stateless applications, though, so depending on the specific needs of your environment it may or may not be appropriate: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/0baca8b1-73b9-4cd2-ab9c-654d88d05b4f.mspx?mfr=true
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/6ac4a6ba-1c0c-46be-8c6a-2c2e0e567e981033.mspx
ASKER
Thank you for your fast responses.
ASKER
Thank you for the response. SQL server is actually not my biggest worry (I already have some "okay" solutions for restoring SQL service pretty quickly in the event of a failure).
But what about IIS? DO you think that would be difficult to manage if I had a few webs that need high-availability.
These webs are a constantly changing (it's an internal app that we're always developing). Do you think adding clustering would add a lot of ongoing work in this regard?