Software Considerations

Software Considerations

The shared-disk cluster examples that appear in this reference are designed for use with the high-availability features of the IBM ServeRAID II Ultra SCSI Adapter, the IBM Netfinity ServeRAID-3H Ultra2 SCSI Adapter, or the IBM Netfinity Fibre Channel RAID Controller using the clustering programs provided in the Netfinity Cluster Pack by Vinca, IBM Part Number 01K8018.

This section also provides the instructions needed to modify the cluster examples for use with Microsoft Cluster Server.
The Microsoft Cluster Server software requires the use of a quorum drive, which is a shared logical drive that both servers can use to store and retrieve data.

Important Quorum Information

•  The servers must  share the quorum logical drive. Therefore, the physical drives used when  defining the quorum logical drive must  reside in one of the storage expansion enclosures with the  other shared drives.

•  The cluster software stores several MB of data on the quorum drive. You can use the remaining  space in the quorum logical drive to store other application programs and data.

•  The quorum drive presents a single point of failure. If this logical drive becomes defunct, the  failover and failback functions will not occur. To help maintain high availability, define a RAID  level-1 logical drive for use as the quorum drive.

•  When using the Microsoft Cluster Server program with the IBM ServeRAID II or ServeRAID-3H  adapters, you also must  connect Channel 3 of a ServeRAID adapter in Server A to Channel 3 of a  ServeRAID adapter in Server B, then, define the quorum drive as a RAID level-1 logical drive on  Channel 1 or Channel 2 of the same pair of ServeRAID adapters. When one server fails, this  dedicated quorum-arbitration link  is used to locate and then transfer control of the shared disks to  the nonfailing server.

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