Windows Server Troubleshooting

Windows Server Troubleshooting - Cluster
Home \| Up \| Methodology \| Architecture \| Tools \| Memory \| Processor \| Registry \| File System \| Network \| Active Directory \| Contents

Get the Book

Major Topics

Task Manager
System Monitor
Computer Management
SystemInfo
Device Manager
Auditing
Start Options
Terminal Services
Blue Screen
Help Center
Fault Tolerance
Microsoft
More Information

Other Topics

Dfs
RAID
Cluster

More Detail

eXpert Genealogy

MSCS Microsoft Cluster Service

With MSCS, each server is connected to

Public production network
Other cluster servers through a private network

In MSCS, servers have shared access to a SCSI or fiber channel bus. Each volume on the storage array will be the responsibility of one of the cluster servers. If that server fails, another server will take control of the storage volume. Failure detection is as follows.

	Each server has two network cards one connected to the public production network one connected to the other cluster servers
	Each server monitors the other servers with heartbeat packets every 1.2 seconds A server is assumed to be offline after 2 misses heartbeats 2.4 seconds
	Before assuming control of a volume, a server tries to communicate with the offline server through the public network. The network card is checked with Plug and Play The servers try to communicate over the public network to determine who takes control of the cluster volumes. If the other server is down, the remaining server takes control of the offline server's disk drives
	Normal operations return once the heartbeat resumes

	Advances Server supports two-node clusters.
	DataCenter Servers supports clusters up to four nodes

The following diagram shows how MSCS servers share a storage device and connect to both a public and private network.

	Public IP Network
	Cluster communications
Server1	Private IP Network	Server2

	Shared SCSI bus
	Shared RAID Array

Windows troubleshooting