Is Cheap Clustering on W2k possible

cousin_borat

How's it going,

I'm looking to implement a clustering solution for a small office.

x2 Windows 2000 Servers (not advanced so no MSCS)

The requirements are:
1) failover for the Domain services if one server
2) mapped drives go to failover server
3) file replication for a folder that is used by an internal database

Not going with a hardware solution as budget constraints and not really big enough office to justify buying a SAN or NAS.

Any of the software (SafeKit , Lifekeeper, etc) seems to start off around $1500 dollars

So:
Can somebody suggest a cheap software solution.

I would also consider setting Linux file server with Samba if there was open source software that done the same thing.

Thanks

Capt'n Midnight

Microsoft want you to buy Enterprise which has all these features so they have disabled some of them in the ordinary server much like they disable more features in workstation and home

The replication service ain't recomended for synchronising large folders - login scripts really

Domain Services should be easy - all windows servers should do this.
for DHCP you can enter the same static addresses on both servers for the dynamic ones setup different IP ranges - dns etc can setup on both

Mapped drives easy
you could use the nt/2k/xp variable %logonserver% to determine which server you got the logon script from.

or you could check if you can see files on the main server.
set serv=backupserver
if exist \\mainserver\sharename\*.* set serv=mainserver
net use x: \\%serv%\drives


In theory you could do something similar in windows by sharing everything by IP rather than names and have two IP addresses on different subnets so the servers could see each other and then use NETSH to change the other IP address (the one the clients see) on the fly - real hack job and not pretty and you are stuck with the timeouts of up to 43 minutes or whatever for the effects to totally ripple though the LAN

What is the dB in - eg: MsSQL can be setup so that two servers replicate to each other and clients can failover to the other one.

Also you need to check licensing - if you are already using per seat for everything should be OK .


Linux - there is a neat service where both servers look at requests sent to a fake third address, and if one doesn't answer the other takes over - fairly transparent to the clients.

JDxtra

You can mirror two network folders using the latest version of Robocopy (available to download as part of the Windows 2003 Resource Kit).

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBB/tip0600/rh0609.htm - robocopy looks interesting
it won't give you on the fly replication but me's going to have another look at the windows 2000 resource CD tomorrow

JDxtra

Check out the version in the Windows Server 2003 resource kit. It has a new '/mir' switch which can be used to mirror two folders at intervals you specify or after a certain amount of file changes.

cousin_borat

Thanks for the suggestions lads,

Much appreciated and am going to investigate all of them

Enda