Hello, I am designing a system that will be running Exchange 2003 on Windows 2003 and I want to confirm a situation with a 4 node cluster (3 Active and 1 Passive). I understand that I can have a total of 3 EVS, I will have a total of two Storage Groups per EVS. This design allows me to plan for a failover of two nodes only right? This is primarily because of the limitation with having only 4 SG per Exchange Server. If I want to plan for all three nodes failure, I would need to create only ONE storage group per EVS. I appreciate any confirmation regarding this situation. Thank you, Tman
It sounds like you have a pretty good understanding of this. One of my customers runs 3 Active-1Passive configurations, but each of their virtual servers has 4 storage groups. Of course, they can only sustain the loss of a single physical node in the cluster. If I were you, I would avoid ever failing an active node over to another active node. If you think there is a situation where more than one physical node will fail, you should put an additional passive node in the cluster. -- Jim McBee Web: http://www.somorita.com Blog: http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com Stuff: http://geekbargains.blogspot.com "TheTman" wrote in message news:uUk4cwJTFHA.2124@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl... > Hello, > > I am designing a system that will be running Exchange 2003 on Windows 2003 > and I want to confirm a situation with a 4 node cluster (3 Active and 1 > Passive). > > I understand that I can have a total of 3 EVS, I will have a total of two > Storage Groups per EVS. This design allows me to plan for a failover of > two nodes only right? This is primarily because of the limitation with > having only 4 SG per Exchange Server. If I want to plan for all three > nodes failure, I would need to create only ONE storage group per EVS. > > I appreciate any confirmation regarding this situation. > > Thank you, > Tman >
Thank you...It is greatly appreciated.
"TheTman" wrote in message news:uUk4cwJTFHA.2124@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl... > Hello, > > I am designing a system that will be running Exchange 2003 on Windows 2003 > and I want to confirm a situation with a 4 node cluster (3 Active and 1 > Passive). > > I understand that I can have a total of 3 EVS, I will have a total of two > Storage Groups per EVS. This design allows me to plan for a failover of > two nodes only right? This is primarily because of the limitation with > having only 4 SG per Exchange Server. If I want to plan for all three > nodes failure, I would need to create only ONE storage group per EVS. In this configuration with a 3+1 cluster, the EVSs will not fail over to a node where an EVS is already running. This configuration will not allow more than one EVS per node. That said, that means only one node can fail to the passive node. If any other nodes fail after the first failure, the EVS will not come online on any of the other nodes. It will remain failed. So, Storage Groups per EVS is not a concern in this case so long as they don't exceed the limits of a single Exchange server.
I had good understand until I saw your post. What do you mean when you say EVS will not fail over to a node where an EVS is already running? Are you saying that I can't fail over two node to the passive one at the same time? How is that possible when there is an option to configured Active/Active cluster, you would end up with two EVS on the same node? I am not sure that I understand what you are saying and I finding it conflicting with the many whitepapers/books that I have read so far. Could you please clarify? Thank you, TS
"TheTman" wrote in message news:eVO2ok0TFHA.3084@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl... >I had good understand until I saw your post. > What do you mean when you say EVS will not fail over to a node where an > EVS is already running? That is what I mean. If you have 3 or more nodes, it is not possible for a single node to host more than one EVS. It either needs to fail to a passive node or it will just fail and not come up. > Are you saying that I can't fail over two node to the passive one at the > same time? Yes, you can not do that. > How is that possible when there is an option to configured Active/Active > cluster, you would end up with two EVS on the same node? That is just the way it is.
Wow...I guess it makes sense since there can only be one EVS per active node. How is this different in Active/Active cluster configuration. Won't you end up with two EVS on the same node? Thank you, TS
"TheTman" wrote in message news:utkz1rKUFHA.260@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl... > Wow...I guess it makes sense since there can only be one EVS per active > node. How is this different in Active/Active cluster configuration. Won't > you end up with two EVS on the same node? In a two node cluster, the rules are different.
Thank you again, I think I am going to spend more time reading on cluster and possibly do some testing. I appreciate everything you pointed out. TS
