Setting up a clustered printserver 1

[MarkMeerten]

Does anyone have a manual how to set up a clustered printserver on 2003 server?

Thanx

 

[ShackDaddy]

Was it really easier to ask here than to search TechNet?

How To Set Up A Clustered Print Server on Windows 2003:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;278455

ShackDaddy

 

[MarkMeerten]

Thanx,
I just found it myself ;-)

Any idea if i can do it with 2 computers and no quorumdisk?

Thanx in advance

 

[ShackDaddy]

Ummm.... I think that's kind of like asking whether you can hire a gardener who doesn't have any arms. Clusters do what they do because they <i>share</i> a quorum disk. Although you can create a "cluster" without a separate quorum disk, there can only be one node in it. You do that for testing; it doesn't offer you any actual clustering benefits.

How many printers are in the pool that you want to cluster?

If you want to set up a poor-man's cluster, you could just configure an extra system with the same name and IP address as your print server and set up all the requisite printers on it (keeping it off the network while the other is online, of course). If the main server goes down, swap the network cable. Cluster failover usually takes 45 seconds to 2 minutes anyway, so there's always going to be at least a tiny bit of downtime.

Or spend the $2000+ to get a proper quorum disk and shared storage array.

ShackDaddy

 

[MarkMeerten]

Sorry for the mistake... i meant a separate quorum disk...

Our printpool has approximately 950 printers (HP, Xerox, Kyocera Mita, ...) all on 1 print server as we speak :-( on an average day (24h) 48.686 pages are printed over 47.158 Jobs …

We’re experiencing more and more probs at the moment and are seriously considering to setup several clusters ...

I’ve read that 2003 Server can work without a separate quorum disk for applications such as a printserver. The prob is that I cant find any documentation how to set this up…
If you’ve got any suggestions they’re more than welcome!!!


Thanx a lot!!!

 

[ShackDaddy]

No, from my understanding of how clustering works, that's impossible. You can have a fully functioning single node cluster with a local quorum and functioning print queue, but it doesn't offer any failover capability. There's no point to it. As soon as you have two servers that each have their own quorum, you have two clusters, not one, and if they manage to support each other, it's not because of their "clustering" capability. It might be more like load balancing.

I searched all over for something like you describe, and couldn't even find an allusion to it. If I were you, I'd go ahead and spring for a new SCSI-based shared-storage array and the required controllers (I'm familiar with the HP hardware). I can't believe you're supporting that many printers. I'd bet that the cost of 15 of those printers would be equal to the amount you need to spend to get all 950 printing more reliably.

If you need another opinion, ask this question in the Microsoft Clustering forum here on Tek-Tips.

ShackDaddy

 

[xonal]

Can someone help me plz i need to install 3 node geographically clustering print server with failover can someone help me plz i would appreciate it heaps i searched the net couldn’t find any solid answers.

thanks you very much