AutoStart and Microsoft Clustering Services

Question

We are just beginning to look at AutoStart to manage failover between our data centers. They are not very far apart and we are able to use SRDF/S between the Symms. We currently have out MS clusters in one data center sharing the devices on one Symm. We will be splitting the servers between the data centers. Our current thinking is to have two single node MS clusters at each site and layering AutoStart on top to mange the site failover. Has anyone done this before? The other idea was to break the cluster, reinstall the software on one non clustered server, fail over to it and then reinstall the software on the other AutoStart node. We are curious at what other sites have done. Thanks for any information.

tribicic · Answer

Hello Danne - I must admit I don't see a point of running both clusters at the same time. If you split the cluster across two data zones and install Autostart to manage it, you don't need Microsoft Cluster any more. What apps/services do you have clustered?

tribicic · Answer

I see the point... My advice would be to remove the virtual servers and then just reinstall them under Autostart environment. You will end up with the same virtual SQL servers, but since the MSSQL installation procedure differs quite a bit between MSCS and Autostart, this will have to be done. Autostart can manage both MSSQL and Oracle in combination with SRDF storage, but do check if the versions involved are supported.
Trying to keep the current virtual servers as single node clusters may be difficult if not impossible - and it will definitely get you in the land of the unsupported setups.

Hope this helps, if you need more info, just shoot.

Danne-Murphy · Answer

Thank you for your response. we are trying to get EMC to provide more then just marketing talk. This is a good place to get other customers experiences,

We mainly have SQL Server clusters, 2 Oracle Fail Safe clusters and 1 application service. I think we would have to uninstall SQL Server on the nodes and reinstall without cluster services.My thought was going forward on new servers we would not use MS clustering services, but would let the current servers as single node clusters. I wanted to know if anyone had done this or did they remove MS clustering and reinstall.

Danne-Murphy · Answer

This soul be interesting. We know what we want, we do not know how to get there at this point. We have contracted EMC PS to assist with 9 cluster installs(8 Windows and 1 AIX). We have not setup SRDF yet, so we have some time to get information. Thanks again for the input.

IKP1 · Answer

Danna,The answer to your original question is yes this has been done before. An EMC PS project here in the UK created an environment where AutoStart was wrapped around a customer's MS Exchange clustered environment to managed the SRDF allocations etc.This customer also had a number of other clusters (UNIX and Windows) and in all other cases these where built with EAS providing ALL the clustering and managing the SRDF environments.Unless you really need MS clustering for application support issues I would suggest that you don't mix the two and that you use the features and functions within EAS to build the cluster and manage ALL the elements.HtHIKP

Danne-Murphy · Answer

Did you look at other products before deciding on AutoStart? Does SRDF/CE provide the same results with less complexity? Does AutoStart provide more functionality? Are there other options that do the same thing as AutoStart? Since we are at the very start of this, we are trying to get as much information as possible from others that had used the products.
Thanks in advance.

IKP1 · Answer

Danne,I cannot speak for the customer on this occasion as I was apart of the EMC PS team whom undertook the installation and configuration.IKP

Replication Manager

AutoStart and Microsoft Clustering Services