Identifying Differences Between Port Rules

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

When migrating a source cluster to a target cluster, create port rules that are identical to the source cluster. When consolidating two or more clusters to a target cluster, create port rules that are identical to the source cluster unless port rules exist on the target cluster that specify the same TCP/UDP port number that is specified by a port rule on the source cluster.

During consolidation, two clusters might have port rules that relate to the same TCP/UDP port number, but have different affinity or load weight. In these situations you must differentiate between the different affinity or load weight behaviors by associating each of the source port rules with a different virtual cluster.

For example, you are migrating two clusters, Cluster A and Cluster B, to the same target cluster. Cluster A has a port rule for HTTP (TCP port 80) traffic that specifies no affinity, while Cluster B has a port rule for HTTP traffic that specifies Single affinity. The applications on these servers expect the affinity behavior. To ensure these applications behave as they did on the source servers, specify a port rule, with unique virtual IP address, for each of the affinity behaviors.