Using Failover Clustering with Notification Services
You can deploy instances of Notification Services on a failover cluster. You can also use a failover cluster for the database server. This topic describes how Notification Services works on a failover cluster and the special considerations for running instances of Notification Services on a cluster.
Running an Instance of Notification Services on a Failover Cluster
To run an instance of Notification Services on a cluster, you deploy the instance on both nodes of the cluster and create a Generic Service that controls which node of the cluster runs the NS$instanceName Microsoft Windows service. If one server in the cluster fails, the Windows service fails over to another node.
When you deploy an instance of Notification Services on a failover cluster, you configure the cluster resource to use the cluster network name instead of the default cluster name or local computer name. Because of this, you must make sure that the system name values in the application definition are the network name (which is the virtual server name) for any hosted event provider, generator, and distributor that runs on the failover cluster. For example, you might have a two-server failover cluster with individual computer names of Lab01 and Lab02. If you configure a virtual server name of AppServer01 for connections to the failover cluster, use AppServer01 as the system name value in the application definition.
If you use the incorrect name, the components that run on the failover cluster stay in the Enable Pending state when you enable the instance. This is because the Windows service updates the status only if the configured system name and the reported virtual server name match.
For information about deploying an instance of Notification Services on a failover cluster, see Walkthrough: Clustered Single-Server Deployment.
Using a Failover Cluster for the Database Server
SQL Server supports using failover clustering for the Database Engine. Database failover is transparent to Notification Services. However, when configuring and registering an instance of Notification Services, you must do the following:
- Specify the virtual server name for the SQL Server System in the instance configuration.
- Specify the virtual server name instead of the computer name for the database server value whenever you register the instance of Notification Services.
For more information about using failover clustering with SQL Server 2005, see Failover Clustering.
See Also
Other Resources
Deploying Notification Services
Failover Clustering
Administering Notification Services