Tips to Clustering? Anyone?

[butkus]

I have a single production server running everything, I also have an external SCSI enclosure with nearly a terabyte of storage sitting on the floor. I would like to take my production 6 server and upgrade to 6.5 and throw another 6.5 server at it with both connected to the SCSI enclosure. Has anyone pursued this (with a production server in the mix) or is it best to leave the production box alone and build the cluster with two new boxes for testing first. Just looking for some advise and headache stories before I begin.

Thanks in advance.

James

 

[marvhuffaker]

if it's the first time you ever set Clustering up, I wouldn't do it on your production box. It's easy enough to setup a couple test systems, figure out how things work.



Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[shorowitz]

I just did two new NW6 clusters and it was a good thing they were not in production yet. One thing that did come up is that if you build a 2 node cluster the license is automatically there for cluster services but if you build a 3 node or more cluster you are asked for a license file which was on the NW6 CD. When I attempted to add a 3rd node to the 2 node cluster I was unable to because the installation does not come up and ask you for the location of a license file. I had to destroy the 2 node cluster and start from scratch with the 3 node. I tried it several times and that is what I ended up doing. That could be a killer in a production environment. Maybe I did something wrong but I couldn't get around the 3rd node license thing.