Clustering Servers Over a WAN
Hi All
my setup is a little bit confussing but I am going to do the best i can. We currently have two Datacenters, lets call them DC1 and DC2. Both sites have a FC SAN and Multiple servers running ESX 4.1.
What i would like to do is create a MS 2008 failover cluster for DHCP services and File print services.
But the issue is that in order get the Cluster working it needs Shared storage and because I am using Vmware and I have two different sites the cluster wont function properly.
So my question is can MS 2008 Clustering and Vmwre function over a WAN?
my setup is a little bit confussing but I am going to do the best i can. We currently have two Datacenters, lets call them DC1 and DC2. Both sites have a FC SAN and Multiple servers running ESX 4.1.
What i would like to do is create a MS 2008 failover cluster for DHCP services and File print services.
But the issue is that in order get the Cluster working it needs Shared storage and because I am using Vmware and I have two different sites the cluster wont function properly.
So my question is can MS 2008 Clustering and Vmwre function over a WAN?
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Hi
How many ESX servers do you have? If you have more than one ESX server, and have vCenter you do not need to install MS Clusters. This is a waste of MS licenses and money. You can do this Clustering and High Availability with vCenter(creating some ESX Cluster with HA and DRS).
And if you need a other site to replicate your Environment, then like danm66 suggests, Veeam is a very good product(and cheap) that can create your Replications between sites.
Jail
How many ESX servers do you have? If you have more than one ESX server, and have vCenter you do not need to install MS Clusters. This is a waste of MS licenses and money. You can do this Clustering and High Availability with vCenter(creating some ESX Cluster with HA and DRS).
And if you need a other site to replicate your Environment, then like danm66 suggests, Veeam is a very good product(and cheap) that can create your Replications between sites.
Jail
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Look.... I know you have your heart set on doing this... but please let me tell you that it is not the most efficient use of resources.
You should reconsider just allowing DRS/HA or even FT for this situation as they would allow a much more robust environment with many less restrictions.
Just trying to be the voice of reason...
-Virt
You should reconsider just allowing DRS/HA or even FT for this situation as they would allow a much more robust environment with many less restrictions.
Just trying to be the voice of reason...
-Virt
ASKER
Thank you all for your coments, lets go over them.
Virtalicious:
DRS/HA would work fine in ONE Datacenter but not two. The requirements for DRS/HA and even FT is Shared storage and because we are using FC, I can not extend My SAN to both Datacenters.
kevinhsieh:
You mentioned Doubletake, we currently have doulbetake in are environment. let me ask you this could we create Two MS Fail over cluster one at one DC and One at another, then using a double take agent replicate the shared disk from one DC to another?
Virtalicious:
DRS/HA would work fine in ONE Datacenter but not two. The requirements for DRS/HA and even FT is Shared storage and because we are using FC, I can not extend My SAN to both Datacenters.
kevinhsieh:
You mentioned Doubletake, we currently have doulbetake in are environment. let me ask you this could we create Two MS Fail over cluster one at one DC and One at another, then using a double take agent replicate the shared disk from one DC to another?
Microsoft cluster used to require that both nodes were in the same subnet! (and that there was a latency limit) which normally makes it difficult to run the cluster across sites - its not that its impossible just that its difficult.
Split site clusters always cause worries about the split brain scenario!
Split site clusters always cause worries about the split brain scenario!
maybe in iscsi configuration you can reach it, but it been so hard to configurate
if you want to create a high availability server use the vmware services, maybe better
HA;
Fault Tolerance
etc
regards