Whats Needed to Cluster?

[shane007]

Im intrested in setting up a home made cluster to test out MS 2000 Advanced Server Cluster Services. I have some spare parts sitting around and was wondering if any of this stuff would be any good to put a cluster together. I have the following

4 x Compaq 6400R P3-500mhz Servers w/ 2gig ram each and 5x18gig drives.

1 x HP SureStore E Disk System Model SC10 with 10 x 36gig drives.

My question is will that Surestore work as a shared scsi disk so 2 servers can access it at the same time? or will i need to go a totaly different direction. If anyone can let me know what i need to get started with a basic cluster (Either new equipment, or how i can make the existing equipment work) please reply!

Thanks in advance!

Shane

 

[jfk8680]

Basicly all you need to get MSCS to work is two computers with SCSI cards and a single SCSI harddisk which is connected to both computers. I have heard people setting up these test systems without problems but I encountered quite some problems. I used two 'simple' SCSI cards but as soon I turned both computers on, one of them froze. Spend the entire day twiddling with the SCSI card's settings but could not get it to work.

If you just want to test MSCS you can also use VMWare to simulate two nodes and a shared disk. There are quite a few step-by-step instructions on the Web how to set up such a test system. Just drop MSCS and VMware in google and I'm sure you'll find so helpfull stuff.

regards,

Jeffrey

 

[shane007]

I am having problems with the scsi portion of the setup as well.. Using an SC10 to connect to both computers seems to be the way to go for a basic system, however when I connect both computers to the array, one server to the scsi-a port on the sc10, and the other to the scsi-b, (Both to the same BCC card) one system can and one system can't access the array. I have gotten the array to work when connecting just one server, but not both.

 

[tjok]

When you use two scsi cards to connect to a shared disk be sure to set a different scsi-id on the cards (6 and 7). With some adapters you have to change some jumpers. I have tried it with different adapters, even with mylex and adaptec raid-controllers.

 

[jfk8680]

I tried every possible combination of SCSI id on both the SCSI cards and the harddisk. I even read an article on the internet which stated that it mattered which SCSI ID was set on the cards and the harddisk (had something to do with priorities).

I installed Vmware yesterday and had a two-node cluster up-and-running within two hours. Works perfectly!

 

[MrTickle]

try installing VM Ware, this will let you create two virtual servers with shared disk on the one server, this will get round the hardware issues you have

 

[GiaBetiu]

jfk8680,
How about your terminators on those SCSI interface and harddrive?
Indeed, youmust be very carefull on IDs on that bus. They must be unique.
But, if you have termination problems also will not work. Also, check your SCSI card. To access a drive from two computers is necessary that those devices to support "SCSI reservation protocol". Check this too!

Gia Betiu
giabetiu@chello.nl
Computer Eng. CNE 4, CNE 5, MCSE Win2K