Lame question on setting up a cluster

[TANKERx]

We have two small machines which we want to cluster, simply for sharing printers.

The machines are two desktops running Win2K Adv Server. No SCSI drives, only IDE.

It refuses to install the Cluster service. Is this because Clustering needs SCSI?

 

[ShackDaddy]

Yes, it needs SCSI or FibreChannel. MSCS is definitely not the solution for what you are trying to accomplish. MSCS isn't something you would normally approach casually, and try to install on desktop machines. A standard hardware cluster setup will usually cost between $9000 and $150,000+, depending on the sorts of decisions you make about storage.

Have you looked into using Network Load Balancing instead of the Cluster service? That might not work either. It would probably still be cheaper for you to put together another desktop with identical printers attached to it and configured identically to your production print server. Leave it powered down until the existing print server fails...

ShackDaddy

 

[SuperFunk]

You might be able to rig this by using NLB features. You can have two servers setup to print to the same IP. Then setup a roundrobin on the DNS for the two server names.

This way, when a client requests to print to the print server, it will switch between the two. If one fails, it should default to the only server online.

I guess this takes away any management features offered in the cluster server.

I'll also add that I haven't tried this, but it's a shot?