Newb Cluster question

[Sigmon]

I'm looking into setting up a cluster to simple sit and run an NT service to process visa transactions. The question I have is this. Once you get the cluster setup is the failover pretty seemless? Whatever I install to run on the first node automatically is setup and runs on the 2nd node as well? Also, where does the software reside? For example, if I install this service on the primary does it reside on the primary systems HD the secondary systems HD and the shared storage?

Thanks in advance for the help as I'm having a hard time testing a cluster solution without available hardware.

 

[ShackDaddy]

Whether the installation is easy depends on what you are installing. If you are running SQL2000, the setup for cluster is extremely simple. The setup detects the clustered environment and behaves accordingly. Other applications may well not behave like this. A few things I've had to manually configure and tweak to run properly, and I had to do a separate install for each node.

Typically you install the application files for an app on the local hard drive of each node. Only databases and transaction logs are kept out on the shared storage. Read more of Microsoft's literature on MSCS and it will tell you which apps have been optimized for clustered use. Here are some useful links:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q259267

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/techart/d5clustering.htm

One non M$ site I've found useful on the subject is:

http://www.nwnetworks.com/cluster.html