Introduction to Windows 2008 R2 Failover Clustering

By: steven@winsrvtuts.com Copyright: 2011 Version: 1.0

Overview of Failover Clustering

Failover clustering is a high-availability (HA) feature that can help ensure that an organizations critical applications and services, such as e-mail, databases, or line-of-business applications, are available whenever they are needed. Failover clustering can help build redundancy into an IT infrastructure and eliminate single points of failure. This, in turn, helps reduce downtime, guards against data loss, and increases the return on investment (ROI).

A Brief Overview of Failover Clustering

A failover cluster is a group of independent computers, or nodes, which are physically, connected by a local-area network (LAN) or a wide-area network (WAN) and that are programmatically connected by cluster software. The group of nodes is managed as a single system and shares a common namespace. The group usually includes multiple network connections and data storage connected to the nodes via storage-area networks (SANs). The failover cluster operates by moving resources between nodes to provide service if system components fail. Normally, if a server that is running a particular application crashes, the application will be unavailable until the server is fixed. Failover clustering addresses this situation by detecting hardware or software faults and immediately restarting the application on another node without requiring administrative interventiona process known as failover. Users can continue to access the service and may be completely unaware that it is now being provided from a different server (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Failover clustering

Microsoft White Paper on Windows Failover Clustering can be found: Here

Windows 2008 R2 Failover Clustering Terminology

By: steven@winsrvtuts.com Version: 1.0

Cluster
A cluster is a group of independent servers or nodes that are accessed and presented to the network as a single system.

Active / Passive
An active passive cluster is a cluster that has at least one note running a services and application group and additional notes the group can be hosted on but are currently in a waiting state. This is a typical configuration when only a single service and applications group is deployed on a failover cluster.

Node
A note is an individual server that is member of the cluster

Active Node
In active node is a node in the cluster that is currently running at least one services and application group. A services and application group can only be active on one note at a time and all other nodes that can host the group are considered passive for that particular group.

Passive Node
A passive node is a node in the cluster that is currently not running any services and application groups.

Cluster Heartbeat (Between Nodes)

The cluster heartbeat is a term used to represent the communication that is kept between individual cluster nodes that is used to determine node status. RB communication can occur on a designated network was also performed on the same network as client communication. Due to this internode communication, network monitoring software and network administrators should be forewarned of the amount of network chatter between the cluster nodes. The amount of traffic is generated by heartbeat communications is not large based on the size of the data but the frequency of the communication might bring some network alarm bells.

Cluster Quorum
The cluster quorum maintains the definitive cluster configuration data and the current state of each note, each services and application group, and each resource and network in the cluster. Furthermore, when each note reads the quorum data, depending on the information retrieved, the node determines if it should remain available, shut down the cluster, or to activate any particular services and application groups on the local node. To extend this even further, failover clusters can be configured to use one of four different cluster quorum models and essentially the quorum type chosen for the cluster defines the cluster. For example, a cluster that utilizes the note and disk majority quorum can be called a note and disk majority cluster.

Cluster Resource
A cluster resource is a service, application, IP address, disk, or network name defined in managed by the cluster. Within a cluster, cluster resources are grouped and managed together using cluster resource groups, now known as service and application groups.

Service Application Groups

Cluster resources are contained within a cluster in a logical set called a services and applications group were historically referred to as a cluster group. Services and applications groups are the units of failover within the cluster. When a cluster resource fails and cannot be restarted automatically, the services and applications group this resource is a part of will be taken off-line, move to another node in the cluster, and the group will be brought back online.

Client Access Point (VIP) Combo of Network Name and IP address

A client access point is a term used in Windows server 2008 R2 failover clusters that represents the combination of a network name and associated IP address resource. By default, when a new services and applications group is defined, a client access point is created with a name and an IPv4 or IPv6 address. The name and IP address remains the same regardless of which cluster no the virtual servers running on.

Virtual Cluster Server

A virtual cluster server is a services or applications group that contains a client access point a disk resource and at least one additional service or application specific resource. Virtual cluster server resources are accessed either by the domain name (DNS) name or a NetBIOS name that refers to an IPv4 or IPv6 address. A virtual cluster server can in some cases also be directly access using it IP address. The name and IP address remain the same regardless of which cluster node the virtual server is running on.

Shared Resources (Shared Disk, 1 Access at a time)

Shared storage is a term used to represent the disks and volumes presented to the Windows server 2008 R2 cluster nodes as LUNs. In particular shared storage can be accessed by each note on the cluster, but not simultaneously.

LUN Logical Unit Number

LUN stands for logical unit number. A LUN is used to identify a disk or a disk volume that is presented to a host server or multiple hosts by a shared storage array or SAN. LUNs provided by shared storage arrays and SANs must meet many requirements before they can be used with failover clusters but when they do, all active nodes in the cluster must have exclusive access to these LUNs.

Failover
Failover is the process of a services and applications group moving from the current active node to another available note in the cluster when a cluster resource fails. Failover occurs when a server becomes unavailable or when a resource in the cluster group fails and cannot recover within the failure threshold.

Failback
Failback is the process of a cluster group automatically moving back to a preferred node after the preferred node resumes operation. Fail back is a non-default configuration that can be enabled within the properties of a services and application group. The cluster group must have a preferred node defined and a failback threshold defined as well, for fail back to function. A preferred node is the node you would like your cluster group to be running or hosted on during regular cluster operations when all cluster nodes are available. When a group is scaling back, the cluster is performing the same failover operation but is triggered by the preferred node rejoining or resuming cluster operation instead of by a resource failure on the currently active node.