Clustering For Mere Mortals

2011 in review

daveberm — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:06:07 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 130,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

SQL Server 2012 Disaster Recovery – Multisite Clusters

daveberm — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:25:27 +0000

Microsoft just released a great white paper on new support for multisite clusters in SQL Server 2012 for Disaster Recovery. Don’t forget that I blogged about this feature back in May of 2011 and even included a video demonstration which shows a SQL Server 2012 multisite failover cluster for disaster recovery using SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition.

http://clusteringformeremortals.com/2011/05/15/sql-server-denali-hadron-multisite-cross-subnet-failover-video-demonstration/

SQL Server 2012 and cross subnet failover capabilities will open up a whole new world of possibilities for people looking for disaster recovery options for SQL 2012.

Virtualization Career Training with Microsoft Learning

daveberm — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:41:17 +0000

Guest announcement from my friend and Microsoft Technical Evangelist, Symon Perriman….

Please check out these two exciting virtualization career training opportunities: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=270.

Virtualization Career Training

On Tuesday, October 4^th Technical Evangelists Symon Perriman and Rick Claus are hosting an online conference on Virtualization Career Training with Microsoft Learning. This half day virtual event (8am – 11am PST) will offer a Level
100
to 200 introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about Microsoft Virtualization and how it can help their career. It is free and public so sign up for this warm-up for the Jump Start event on October 6^th.

 Module 1 – Technology: Learn about Microsoft’s virtualization technologies, how they work, and the future roadmap to the Cloud!

 Module 2 – Career: Understand the importance of virtualization and Private Cloud, and how it can make or break an IT Professional’s career!

 Module 3 – Certification: Get prepared for your next steps towards a virtualization career by understanding and preparing for the Microsoft 70-659 Technical Specialist exam, Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization.

Learn More: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=270

Instructor Bios: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=287

Virtualization Exam 70-659 Training

On Thursday October 6^th Technical Evangelist Symon Perriman and Technical Instructor Philip Helsel will host an online 8-hour deep dive training event for the Microsoft 70-659 Technical Specialist exam, Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization. This virtual event runs from 8am to 5pm PST and will include presentations, demos and live Q&A with the attendees. It costs $99 to attend, but includes a free exam voucher worth $150! It is public so sign up for some great training to help improve your career here: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=272. Register early to make the most of a weekly virtualization coaching newsletter!

 Module 1 – Installing and Configuring Host and Parent Settings

 Module 2 – Configuring Child Settings

 Module 3 – Managing and Monitoring Virtual Environments

 Module 4 – Ensuring High Availability and Recoverability

 Module 5 – Performing Migration

 Module 6 – Configuring Remote Desktop (RD) Role Services Infrastructure

Technologies that we will cover include: Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), System Center Operations Manager (OpsMgr), System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM), Windows Server Backup, Failover Clustering, Remote Desktop Services, Active Directory, Microsoft Assessment & Planning Toolkit (MAP), Virtual Machine Servicing Tool (VMST), Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) & more!
Learn More: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=274

Exam Information: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exam.aspx?ID=70-659

Thanks!
Symon Perriman
Technical Evangelist
Private Cloud Technologies
Microsoft

See videos on TechNet

Follow announcements @SymonPerriman

Windows Server 8 Developer Preview will not support the Hyper-V Role while running on VMware Workstation…at least on my laptop

daveberm — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 05:28:30 +0000

Unless someone knows a trick that I don’t, it doesn’t appear as if I will be able to test out some of the Hyper-V clustering features unless I identify some actual hardware for Windows 8. I had hoped that just maybe VMware Workstation 8 would be able to fool Windows 8 into thinking it was actually a physical server, but so far no dice. This article appears to indicate it will work if you have an Intel Nehalem or Intel Core i7 processor, but my two year old Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 doesn’t seem to be able to do the trick.

I added the hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = “FALSE” to the config file and I changed the CPU settings to use Intel VT –x/EPT as shown below.

But this is what I get when I try to enable the Hyper-V role.

Maybe it is time to invest in a new laptop?

Windows Server 8 Developer Preview Running on VMware Workstation 8

daveberm — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 04:26:21 +0000

I’m pretty excited that I was able to get Windows Server 8 up and running on my laptop today. I wasn’t really looking forward to having to boot from VHD just to check out some of the features. I really wanted to run multiple copies of Windows Server 8 at the same time so I could check out some of the cool new clustering features, so once again, booting my laptop from a VHD really wasn’t going to give me the experience I needed. I do have some servers running Hyper-V that would have been fine, but I really like having something quick and easy on my laptop that I can fire up anywhere at any time. VMware Workstation has been my go to virtualization platform for my Windows 7 laptop for quite some time due to the lack of a real client based hypervisor alternative from Microsoft.

When I downloaded the Windows Server 8 Developer Preview Edition from MSDN earlier this week I was assuming I was getting an installation ISO. What I discovered was that I actually downloaded a pre-installed VHD. I haven’t gone back yet to check to see if there is an ISO, but from reading the blogs it appears there is an ISO available somewhere, so I probably just grabbed the wrong file. Without a Hyper-V player available for Windows 7 (well, maybe VirtualBox?), I decided to get really crazy and try out the free Starwind V2V Converter and turn it into a bootable VMDK file so I could launch it in VMware Workstation.

I found the Starwind V2V Converter to be very straight forward and soon enough I had a VMDK file ready to launch in VMware Workstation. What I soon found out was that you cannot run Windows Server 8 Developer Preview in VMware Workstation 7; you need the newly released Workstation 8. In VMware Workstation you get a message that begins as follows…

*** VMware Workstation internal monitor error ***
vcpu-0:NOT_IMPLEMENTED vmcore/vmm/intr/apic.c:1903

So, I went ahead and upgrade to Workstation 8 and tried to turn on the converted VMDK file. At first I got a message about hardware being changed and the VM would not start, but after I adjusted the processor so that it match the processor that I have (1 CPU, 2 Core) the VM launched! One other setting you need to make sure to set right is the operating system version. Since Windows 8 is not an option yet, choose Windows 7. Windows 7 x64 doesn’t work – make sure you choose Windows 7!

I tried to install the VMware tools, but that didn’t work out so well for me as I simply got a black screen with a pointer after the tools were installed. Until they come out with VMware tools specific for Windows 8 I would avoid installing the VMware tools for the time being.

Here is my first view of Windows 8. I’ll be writing more about the HA features and Hyper-V next week once I start poking around J

Do You Have to Sacrifice High Availability for High Performance?

daveberm — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 03:05:42 +0000

Mosey on over to the Fusion-io website and read my guest post in their blog, Do You Have to Sacrifice High Availability for High Performance? After you are done there, view the joint SIOS and Fusion-io webinar “SQL Server 2008 – High Performance and High Availability Through Fusion-io and SIOS”

Part of this webinar includes some VERY interesting benchmark information…you won’t want to miss it!

Hyper-V Replica Coming in Windows Server “Next”

daveberm — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:48:45 +0000

Here is an interesting video that demonstrates “Hyper-V Replica”, a new feature coming in the next version of Windows. Skip to the 39 minute mark to see the demonstration.

http://digitalwpc.com/Videos/AllVideos/Permalink/3cb3788c-5c47-4b9e-987c-0dec4194058b/#fbid=slfi0dmNMqP

It looks like a very welcome feature that certainly will make Hyper-V even more competitive when comparing the feature set vs. price between vSphere and Hyper-V, especially with the new pricing announced by VMware.

I’ll be very curious to see if this integrates with Windows Server Failover Clustering to allow you create shared nothing clusters as you can today with 3^rd party replication software like SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition as I demonstrated in an earlier blog post.

http://clusteringformeremortals.com/2009/09/17/hyper-v-live-migration-across-data-centers/

SQL Server Denali HADRON Multisite Cross Subnet Failover Video Demonstration

daveberm — Sun, 15 May 2011 01:59:00 +0000

The crowd has spoken and the SQL Server Team has answered! Denali is the first version of SQL Server to support the cross subnet failover feature first introduced in Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering. It seems like we have been waiting forever for the SQL team to support this feature but the wait is finally drawing to an end.

The following is a link to a 5 minute video that demonstrates a 3-node cluster Denali cluster with two nodes in the primary datacenter and one node in the DR site in a separate subnet.

http://screencast.com/t/ni1zqMOIv

I will be demonstrating this solution at Tech-Ed 2011 in Atlanta this week. Stop by the SIOS Technology booth and have a look for yourself at the SQL Server Denali multisite cluster demonstration using SteelEye DataKeeper.

Failover Clustering & Hyper-V: Multi-Site Disaster Recovery

daveberm — Wed, 11 May 2011 21:54:40 +0000

Here is a great video from a friend of mine and former MVP Cluster Lead, Symon Perriman. It looks like he is enjoying his new job as Microsoft product evangelist.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/Hh133452

Microsoft multisite cluster users rejoice – it is now possible to have automatic failover in a 3 node cluster!

daveberm — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 21:50:16 +0000

Microsoft recently released a patch that allows you to specify whether or not a cluster node can vote in in a majority quorum model. This is particularly useful in a multisite cluster configuration that consists of an even number of nodes.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2494036

Consider the following…

I have a two node cluster in a local site high availability and I wish to extend it to a 3^rd location and add a single node for disaster recovery. Sound like a great plan as a multisite cluster is just about the most robust DR plan you can implement. However, you will not be able to take advantage of one of the best features of a multisite cluster – automatic recovery in the event of a site loss. If you were to lose your primary site the DR site only contains one cluster node (see Figure 1). This is just one vote out of three in the cluster so a majority cannot be obtained and Node3 will not come online automatically. The only way to make Node3 come online is to force the quorum online, which kind of defeats the purpose of multisite cluster by requiring human intervention for a failover to happen.

Figure 1 – In a typical 3 node multisite cluster if you lose the primary site the DR site cannot obtain majority so failover never occurs.

The only “safe” way to have automatic failover in a multisite cluster is to have an equal number of nodes in each site and to have a file share witness in a 3^rd location with connectivity back to both the primary site and the DR site. This concept is a little difficult to grasp at first, so let me attempt to explain through illustrations.

Figure 2- With an even number of nodes in both locations and the file share witness in the primary site a loss of the primary site would not result in a failover as the Alternate Site would only have 2 out of 5 votes, not a majority.

Figure 3 – If the file share witness was moved to the Alternate Site a failure of the WAN would cause a false failover as the Alternate Site would form a majority and come online.

Figure 4 – with the file share witness in a 3rd location failover will occur if the Primary Site is lost and false failovers are avoided in the case of connectivity failure between the Primary and Alternate Site.

As you can see, figure 4 represents the only reasonable configuration which supports automatic failover. However, this assumes that there are an equal number of nodes in each location. If you are stuck with the original 3-node configuration you are stuck as adding a file share witness does not help as you can never achieve a majority in the alternate site…until today! Microsoft release a patch that basically allows you to specify whether or not a node gets to vote or not. So what this means is you can build a 3-node cluster as illustrated in Figure 1, yet take advantage a file share witness in a 3^rd location as illustrated in Figure 4. By simply telling one of the nodes in the Primary Site to note vote in the cluster you will allow the Alternate Site to form a majority with the file share witness and come online. Assuming connectivity to your 3^rd location and Alternate Site is relatively reliable there really is no downside to the configuration shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 – by disabling the vote on Node2 you can deploy a 3-node multisite cluster with a file share witness and safely support automatic failover to the DR site. The same concept can be applied to any cluster with an odd number of nodes.

While this is a great solution, you still need that 3^rd location for the file share witness. If you don’t have that 3^rd location you will just have to settle for a manual switchover and keep the file share witness in the primary site if you have an even number of nodes.

The PreventQuorum switch is also included as part of this hotfix which will also be of interest to people deploying multisite clusters. Well explore that option in a future article.

Get the hot fix here…

A hotfix is available to let you configure a cluster node that does not have quorum votes in Windows Server 2008 and in Windows Server 2008 R2

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2494036