MCSE Planning and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure: Exam 70-293 Study Guide and DVD Training System

Making Server Clustering Part of Your High-Availability Plan

• Individual servers in a server cluster are called nodes.

• A server cluster can consist of up to eight nodes.

• The individual physical or logical components managed by a cluster are called resources. Resources are combined to form groups, which are the basic administrative unit of a server cluster.

• Applications operating on a server cluster move between nodes in a process called failover. What happens during a failover is configurable and depends on the server cluster design.

• The resource that is used to control the server cluster is the quorum. Every server cluster has a quorum resource whose form is determined by the cluster design model adopted.

• Server clusters require very specific up-front planning for successful implementation.

Making Network Load Balancing Part of Your High-Availability Plan

• NLB is used to increase availability for applications that service TCP/IP traffic only. Other protocols are not supported.

• Individual servers in an NLB cluster are called hosts.

• NLB clusters determine their operating state through a process called convergence.

• NLB clusters can be administered from with a graphical tool (NLB Manager) or a command-line tool (NLB.exe). The graphical tool is more secure.

• An NLB cluster does not require multiple network adapters in each host, although this is recommended.

• NLB provides no additional security features and requires more stringent security practices than do stand-alone servers.