Microsoft Clustering

Sean Roberts, Jean Pierre

SLAC
 Microsoft Clustering
Terminology
• Network Load Balancing Cluster (NLB)
• Component Load Balancing (CLB)
• Server Cluster
• Compute Cluster
 Functionality of the different types
of MS cluster solutions
• NLB and CLB are stateless Ethernet
based load balancing service, no
additional hardware required
• Server Cluster is a fault tolerant stateful
service, networked storage and dual NIC
required
• Computer Cluster is a data compute
service, at least dual NIC required
 Overview of requirements and MS
cluster products
Operating System of
Nodes in Cluster Maximum Nodes in cluster Per Node
Intel
Processor
Component Load Balancing Class
Network Load (requires Windows Application Maximum Supported Maximum
Balancing Center 2000) Server Cluster Processors (b) RAM (GB)
Windows Server 2003, 32 12 N/A
Standard Edition 4 32, 64 4
Windows Server 2003, 32 12 8
Enterprise Edition 8 32, 64 32
Windows Server 2003, 32 12 8
Datacenter Edition 32 32, 64 64
Windows Server 2003
Compute Cluster N/A N/A N/A 4 64 4
 Network Load Balancing (NLB)
• NLB has no status as it
is stateless
• Web, Terminal, and
VPN typical services run
on NLB
• Interconnect by MAC
address sharing
• Resources generally
application being load
balanced only
Component Load Balancing (CLB)
• CLB has no status as it
is stateless
• Web COM+ typical
services run on CLB
• Using NLB as
interconnect
• Resources generally
COM+ application being
load balanced only
 Server Cluster
• Cluster status held by
quorum disk, generally a
SAN device
• SQL, Exchange, File, and
Print typical services run on
cluster
• Interconnect by TCP and
UDP on single network
segment
• Resources generally SAN
and NAS devices, IP
addresses, hostnames, and
applications
 Compute Cluster
• One or more head nodes
must run Compute Cluster,
remaining head and
compute nodes can be
Compute Cluster or
Windows 2003 x64
• Remote administration and
job scheduling can be run
from Windows 2003 or
Windows XP
• Using MS-MPI supporting
C, Fortran77, and
Fortran90 (version of MPI2,
compatible with MPICH
implementation)
• Using PXE for deployment
of nodes
 Sharepoint NLB & Cluster Validation

• Sharepoint web pages and configuration

are pulled directly from SQL. All changes
made from the application are seen
immediately upon refresh of web pages
• Sharepoint runs on IIS and is a valid app
for NLB (with server persistence set)
• Sharepoint runs on MS SQL which is a
certified application that cooperatively
works with the cluster service
 Sharepoint High Availability Technologies

• Network Load Balancing – used to keep

the virtual web site available in the event
of a web server failure

• Active/Passive SQL Cluster – used to

minimize service downtime in the event of
a SQL server failure
Sharepoint NLB & Cluster Architecture
File Cluster Architecture
 References
• Network Load Balancing (NLB) FAQ
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowss
erver2003/library/ServerHelp/358b9815-3cd3-4912-
a75a-cae85ea8d5ab.mspx
• Component Load Balancing (CLB) FAQ
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/acs/deploy
/clbovrvw.mspx#EJAA
• MS Server Clusters FAQ
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowss
erver2003/technologies/clustering/sercsfaq.mspx#EQD
• MS Compute Cluster
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/hpc/white
paper.mspx