Problems with MS Access Databases on MS Cluster

[Bonedaddy]

We are moving off a Novell file server to a Windows 2003 Clustered fileserver. We have many Access databases in our environment. As soon as the databases are moved to the cluster, the users and developers experience problems with slowness, lockups, and database corruption. We juse moved one of the databases to another standalone Windows server, and there haven't been any problems at all.

Is this common? Is anyone else having these problems? If so, does anyone know of a fix?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,
Dwight

 

[mrdenny]

Is the cluster failing back and forth for any reason?

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Configuration / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Configuration)
MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005) / Database Developer (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[Bonedaddy]

No. It's a file server and print server on the cluster. One node is the active file server, and the other is the active print server. I found out that one way our techs were "fixing" this was by failing the virtual server back and forth. Then it would work for a while and things would slow down again.

 

[mrdenny]

Failing the virtual server over to the other node isn't the greatest of fixes.

It could be anything. Network bandwidth, disk issues with the disk setup on the SAN, etc.

I've setup clustered file servers before and there isn't anything special that you have to do. Is anyone else using files on the cluster reporting the same problems or just the people using the Access database?

Have you checked the MSKB?

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Configuration / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Configuration)
MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005) / Database Developer (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[Bonedaddy]

I know. I didn't know that was happening. We have several clusters. Some are Win2000 clusters, adn others are 2003. People with the Access Databases are the only people complaining about problems. If there are other issues, I don't know of them. Nor did I see anything on the MSKB.

 

[Kuskaya]

Hi Bonedaddy,

as you know access db is not a cluster aware application.In a cluster environment,failover situations are common and this can cause a corruption on you db.

What is the size of you access db ?

I would suggest you to monitor the disk and the network performance.Identify users running heavy write activities to this drive.

Kind regards,
Cengiz Kuskaya

 

[Bonedaddy]

Thank you Kuskaya. The Access db's are various sizes. It seems we were able to fix the slowness issue with applying Win2K3 SP2. However, there still the issue of corruption caused by an unexpected failover. Do you recommend not having these databases on a cluster, but move them to a share on a standalone server?

 

[Kuskaya]

Hi,

thats right.Moving the database to a standalone server is the best way to prevent corruption on your database.

Kind regards,
Cengiz Kuskaya