Cluster Solution... is this possible without a SAN 1

[Aurele]

Hi,

I apologise in advance for any confusion... I am trying to get my head round this Novell and SAN/NAS concept. Ok, here goes:

Is it possible to have a cluster consisting of Novell 6.5 nodes with Novell Cluster Services (NCS) running on them to have IDENTICAL data across their HDDs, i.e. Server 1 will have the exact same data as Server 2 without implementing a SAN of some sort.

I presume that a heartbeat switch will be connected to the servers using their secondary NICs to allow failover, failback.

So would NCS allow the data to be stored across the servers (striped??) or:

a) it is not possible!
b.) I need to configure/purchase some more equipment to accomplish what I want to.

I am trying to stay away from the SAN concept, with SAN fabrics, etc as management who know its benefits cannot allocate a proportion of the budget to it.

This may sound confusing, but is it possible to have have a storage array, connected to the servers without any additional expensive hardware such as HBAs, FC switches, etc and if so, can you recommend or point me out to some please. Just a set of disks running on multiple hardware would do me for now. Maybe thats what a NAS solution is??

Sorry for the 20 questions, have a presentation tomorrow on the progress made by the team and so far, we have come up with zilch (being SQL Server DBAs, not Network/System administrators). This is after two weeks of research... and I am more confused than ever. I think I may have used some terms in the wrong context so please bear with me and I will try to elucidate whats flying around in my head if asked.

 

[terry712]

you can use isci - this is poor mans clustering
all you need is a disk shelf and 2 scsi cables - it does have limitations but cheaper than fibre

what you are discribing though isnt clustering - it's creating a redundant standby server - more like the old vinca idea

you could do this with nss mirroring as well

in netware though the second nic isnt used for the heartbeat - the heartbeat should be used on the lan - its better idea

 

[Aurele]

Thanks for the reply Terry.

Doesn't clustering come in two forms:

Active/Active

Passive/Active

And isnt clustering the creation of a virtual server so to speak where all the servers act as one. Sorry if I misunderstood the white papers I have been reading, and if you think I am questioning you. I am not, I am trying to understand this better.

Will NSS mirroring allow multiple servers to all have the same consistent information? I thought that heartbeats were on a private LAN so to speak, separate from the public LAN?

iSCSI is not a viable solution unfortunately. Would it be possible to do all of this with NAS and whats the difference between a NAS and a SAN, barring all the hardware and cost.

Questions, questions, questions, will this ever end.

Thanks for reading guys.