Ensuring Ease of Cluster Management and Operations
Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2
After your Network Load Balancing cluster is deployed, the operations staff in your organization takes primary responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the cluster. In addition to normal administration tasks required to maintain the operating system, such as applying service packs and upgrading the operating system, over the IT life cycle of your cluster, the operations team also maintains and upgrades applications on the cluster.
Follow the guidelines presented in Table 8.18 to help create Network Load Balancing clusters that are easier to manage and operate.
Table 8.18 Guidelines for Designing NLB Clusters for Easy Management
| Guideline | Explanation |
|---|---|
Include sufficient cluster hosts to support maintenance and failover needs. |
Cluster management is easier if enough cluster hosts exist to support client requests when one of the hosts is offline due to maintenance, upgrade, or failure. During lab testing, determine the number of cluster hosts required to support the required client traffic, and then add at least one additional cluster host. |
Create a network infrastructure design that can accommodate a change in the number of cluster hosts. |
The network infrastructure design must be flexible enough to allow the removal and addition of cluster hosts. When creating the supporting network infrastructure design, include additional ports on the switches or hubs connecting cluster hosts to support the addition of cluster hosts, as required. By adding additional network infrastructure support, cluster hosts can be added easily by the operations team without redesigning or recabling the existing network infrastructure. |
During the IT life cycle of the cluster, upgrades are performed on the cluster by the operations team. The operations team typically performs these as rolling upgrades, by upgrading individual cluster hosts, one at a time, until the entire cluster is upgraded. For more information about performing rolling upgrades, see "Deploying Network Load Balancing" in this book.
Scaling out improves cluster performance by adding cluster hosts to the cluster and distributing client traffic across more cluster hosts. For more information about scaling your cluster, see "Scaling NLB Solutions" later in this chapter.