Planning for High Availability and Scalability

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

Business-critical applications such as corporate databases and e-mail often need to reside on systems and network structures that are designed for high availability. The same is true for retail Web sites and other Web-based businesses. Knowing about high availability concepts and practices can help you to maximize the availability (extremely low downtime) and scalability (the ability to grow as demand increases) of your server systems. Using sound IT practices and fault-tolerant hardware solutions in your deployment can increase availability and scalability. Additionally, the Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003 operating system offers two clustering technologies — server clusters and Network Load Balancing — that provide both the reliability and scalability that most enterprises need.

In This Chapter

Overview of Planning for High Availability and Scalability

Defining Availability and Scalability Goals

Using IT Procedures to Increase Availability and Scalability

Evaluating Windows Clustering

Using Clusters to Increase Availability and Scalability

Additional Resources for Planning Server Deployments