Setting up a cluster with two virtual machines

Tom Dunne

Any reason I cannot do it?

Setup: Windows 64 bit with 8Gig of RAM as the host operating system. I have three static IP addresses, two for the machines, plus one for the cluster alias.

I'm thinking of setting up two Win 2003 virtual machines on the above system, each with 2Gig of RAM.

The only problem I can see is with the quorum disk - can I use a drive mapped to the physical machine as a quorum disk? Or are there any other things I am not thinking about? I don't have a SAN or anything like that, only physically attached drives on the host machine.

M@21

The quorum would probably be the sticky point alright.
I presume you are just using this as a test situation.
If so then you should be alright creating a virtual shared disk.
The ideal situation would have a separate storage device.
See this for more info
http://www.roudybob.net/downloads/Setting-Up-A-Windows-Server-2003-Cluster-in-VS2005-Part1.pdf

Tom Dunne

M@21 wrote: »

I presume you are just using this as a test situation.

Oh bejaney, it is. Just trying out something with an Oracle database.

M@21 wrote: »

If so then you should be alright creating a virtual shared disk.
The ideal situation would have a separate storage device.
See this for more info
http://www.roudybob.net/downloads/Setting-Up-A-Windows-Server-2003-Cluster-in-VS2005-Part1.pdf

Brilliant, thanks for that link. Unfortunately, looks like the evaluation version of Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition is no longer available. I actually set up the two machines today with Standard Edition, only then to realise I need Enterprise Edition. Oh well, might try 2008, there is an evaluation version of that.

M@21

Have you tried this link already??
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=77F24C9D-B4B8-4F73-99E3-C66F80E415B6&displaylang=en

Tom Dunne

M@21 wrote: »

Have you tried this link already??
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=77F24C9D-B4B8-4F73-99E3-C66F80E415B6&displaylang=en

An actual VHD? Brilliant, exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks, really appreciate it.