70-293: MCSE Guide to

Planning a Microsoft Windows

Server 2003 Network
Chapter 12:
Planning and
Implementing Server
Availability and Scalability
 Objectives
• Understand availability and scalability
• Differentiate between server clustering and Network
Load Balancing
• Implement server clustering
• Describe the concepts involved in server clustering
• Describe the concepts involved in Network Load
Balancing
• Implement Network Load Balancing
• Install applications on an NLB cluster

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 Availability and Scalability
• Availability: the percentage of time that servers are
providing service on the network

• Scalability: the ability to expand the number of

clients or data that a server can support

• How you implement availability and scalability

depends on whether applications are stateful or
stateless
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 Server Availability
• Potential causes of server or service failure
• Hardware failure
• Network failure
• Administrator mistakes
• Operating system crashes
• Application crashes

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 Server Availability (continued)
• To provide higher server availability, you can use:
• Redundant hardware (e.g., RAID5)
• Uninterruptible power supply for temporary power outages
• Backup power generator for longer power outages
• Redundant paths through the network
• Standardized procedures to perform tasks
• Fully document the network server configuration
• Regularly patched operating systems and applications
• Windows Server 2003 clustering to implement server
clusters and Network Load Balancing

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 Scalability
• Scalability can be accomplished by:
• Scaling up
• Scaling out
• To scale up, you can:
• Add more RAM
• Add a faster disk subsystem
• Add more processors
• Scaling up can be both limiting and expensive

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 Scalability (continued)
• Scaling out uses commonly available hardware rather
than specialized hardware
• Difficult when a single service is running on a server and
you want to scale out
• Network Load Balancing (NLB)
• Best solution for scaling out a single application
• Can distribute the load between multiple servers
• NLB can sense a failed server

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 Stateful and Stateless
Applications
• Stateful applications require the server to retain
knowledge about the client accessing the server
• Not well suited to scale out
• Easier to scale up

• Stateless applications do not require the server to

retain knowledge about the client accessing the server
• Well suited to scale out

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Windows Server 2003 Clustering

• Windows Server 2003 provides two clustering

mechanisms to provide availability and scalability:
• Server clusters
• NLB

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 Server Clusters

• Provides highly available services

• A service runs on a single server and can be moved to
another server in the cluster (failover)
• Server clusters are available only in Windows Server
2003, Enterprise Edition and Datacenter Edition
• Up to eight nodes are supported in each server cluster
• Server clusters must have a shared storage

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 Server Cluster Configurations
• Windows Server 2003 supports:
• Active/Passive
• Consists of two nodes: one hosts services and the other does
not
• N+I failover
• N nodes in the server cluster are active and I nodes are
passive in the server cluster ready to accept failed over
services
• Active/Active
• Consists of two or more nodes, all of which are active
• Single node virtual server
• Consists of only one node. and does not have failover
capability
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 Cluster Applications
• To use server clusters, application must be
• An IP-based protocol
• Able to specify where application data is located
• Able to use the clustering API and receive status
notifications and manage the cluster

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 Network Load Balancing
• Network Load Balancing (NLB) spreads application
requests from clients among two or more servers
• With NLB, an application is installed on multiple
servers using a virtual IP address
• NLB can spread network requests evenly among the
servers hosting the application or spread network
requests based on a weighting scheme

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 An Example of Windows Server
2003 Clustering
• The following example illustrates how both server
clusters and NLB can be used for a Web-based
application designed to explore a computerized web
based database backed school registration system

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An Example of Windows Server
2003 Clustering (continued)

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 Activity 12-1: Cluster Concepts
• The purpose of this activity is to learn more about
server clusters and NLB

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 Installing and Configuring
Server Clusters
• The cluster service is installed automatically as part
of a Windows Server 2003 installation
• To configure a server cluster, you use Cluster
Administrator
• To create new server clusters or
• Add new nodes to an existing server cluster
• New Server Cluster Wizard: creates a new cluster
• After installation, the current state of your cluster is
shown in Cluster Administrator
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 Activity 12-2: Installing a Single
Node Virtual Server Cluster
• The purpose of this activity is to create a single node
virtual server cluster

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 Server Cluster Concepts
• The various concepts about server clusters include:
• Shared disks
• Quorum resource
• Cluster communication
• Resource groups
• Failover and failback
• Virtual servers

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 Shared Disks
• Shared disk: storage that all nodes in a cluster can
access
• Not required when a geographically dispersed server
cluster is configured with an alternate data synchronization
mechanism, or when a server cluster has a single server for
testing purposes
• When shared disks are required use either
• A shared SCSI bus or
• Fibre Channel SAN

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 Shared SCSI Bus

• SCSI configuration requirements include

• An SCSI card that can disable autobus reset
• All SCSI devices on the SCSI must have unique SCSI IDs
• Proper termination on the SCSI bus
• SCSI hard drives that are multi-initiator enabled to support
multiple SCSI cards on the bus

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Shared SCSI Bus (continued)

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 Fibre Channel
• Fibre Channel is for storage area networks
• Requirements for Fibre Channel shared storage
• Fibre Channel card for each node in the server cluster
• External storage array that supports Fibre Channel
• Fibre Channel switch to connect the nodes to the external
storage array

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Fibre Channel (continued)

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 Quorum Resource
• Quorum Resource is used by the cluster service
• To store configuration information
• To arbitrate which node owns the cluster
• The location is specified at server cluster creation
• Only one node at a time can own the quorum resource
• First available node becomes the owner

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 Cluster Communication
• Nodes in a server cluster communicate with each
other using heartbeat packets
• Heartbeat packets monitor which nodes in the server
cluster are still up and available
• Can be UDP unicast packets or multicast packets

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 Resource Groups
• Control of services and applications in a server
cluster is based on resource groups
• Resource group: logical grouping of all required
resources for an application or service to run
• Resources can be disk partitions, IP addresses,
printers, services, and applications
• Resources can be in the following states: online,
offline, online pending, offline pending or failed

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 Failover and Failback
• If a server cluster node fails, the resource groups on
that node automatically fail over to another node
• After failover has occurred, failback is possible
• Occurs when the original node hosting a resource group is
available again and the resource group is moved back to the
original node
• Can define whether a resource group fails back
automatically, manually, or not at all

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 Virtual Servers
• Virtual server: collection of resources in a resource
group presented by the cluster service
• The node that owns the group responds on its behalf
• Resources in server clusters are always accessed
through a virtual server

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 Activity 12-3: Adding a Printer
to a Virtual Server
• The purpose of this activity is to add a printer to a
virtual server

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Activity 12-4: Removing a Server
Cluster Node
• The purpose of this activity is to remove the final
node from a server cluster

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 Network Load Balancing
Concepts
• Concepts in NLB include:
• The NLB driver
• Virtual IP addresses
• Application requirements
• Affinity
• Load balancing options
• Network communication
• Port rules

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 NLB Driver
• NLB driver: software responsible for performing
NLB on each host in an NLB cluster
• Operates between the network card driver and the IP
protocol
• Can intercept and filter all incoming IP traffic
• Filtering is required because all hosts in an NLB cluster
share a MAC address that is used for the cluster

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 Activity 12-5: Enabling the NLB
Driver
• The purpose of this activity is to enable the NLB
driver

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 Virtual IP Address
• Each NLB cluster has a virtual IP address
• The virtual IP address must be
• Unique on the network
• On the same subnet as the hosts in the NLB cluster
• Added as a secondary IP address to a network interface

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 Application Requirements
• NLB suitable applications must:
• Must use TCP or UDP
• Data modified by the clients must be synchronized between
hosts in the NLB cluster or stored in a central location, or
affinity must be configured
• Session state information must be stored on client
computers or central location, or affinity must be
configured
• The application must not bind to a computer name
• Applications must not keep files open for writing

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 Affinity
• Affinity: responses to requests made originally to one
host in an NLB cluster are directed back to the
original host
• Required for applications that track session state info
• Affinity can be configured in three ways:
• None: affinity is not performed for stateless applications
• Single: affinity based on the source IP address of the client
• Class C: affinity is based on the source network of the
client.

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 Load Balancing Options
• When hosts are part of an NLB cluster, you can
define how the load is balanced between them:
• Multiple Host and Equal
• NLB cluster distributes load evenly between all hosts in cluster
• Multiple Host and Load weight
• NLB cluster distributes requests based on a load weight
• Single Host
• All requests to the NLB cluster are directed to a single host

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 Network Communication
• All hosts in the NLB cluster share a MAC address
• All client requests use the MAC address of the NLB
cluster as the destination MAC address
• Allows all hosts in the NLB cluster to receive packets
addressed to the NLB cluster
• NLB driver loaded on each host accepts or discards
the packet based on an algorithm that takes into
account affinity settings, load weighting, and priority
• NLB clusters can be configured to use either unicast
MAC addresses or multicast MAC addresses
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 Unicast
• Unicast is the most common method used for
distributing client requests
• When selected, all hosts in the NLB cluster use the
same unicast MAC address
• Unicast MAC address is used in place of the MAC
address embedded in the network card of each host

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 Multicast
• Multicast MAC addresses: prevent the inefficient use
of switches and allow NLB cluster hosts with a single
network to communicate among themselves

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 Port Rules
• Port rules
• Control what the NLB driver does with packets
• When hosts in the NLB cluster receive packets from
clients, port rules define what is done with each packet
• Composed of
• Cluster IP address
• Port address range
• Protocol
• Filtering mode that includes load weight and affinity

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 Implementing Network Load
Balancing
• To implement an NLB cluster
• NLB driver must be enabled on all servers that are to be
hosts in the NLB cluster
• Can create a new NLB cluster using Network Load
Balancing Manager (nlbmgr.exe)
• After the first host has created the NLB cluster, others can
join

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 Activity 12-6: Installing an NLB
Cluster
• The purpose of this activity is to install an NLB
cluster

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 Installing Applications on an
NLB Cluster
• No special procedure to use when installing
applications on an NLB cluster
• Application must be installed on all hosts in cluster
• Microsoft recommends that you automate the process
of application configuration to ensure that all servers
are configured exactly the same

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Activity 12-7: Configuring a Web
Application for Load Balancing
• The purpose of this activity is to configure a Web site
for load balancing

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Activity 12-8: Removing an NLB
Clustered Application
• The purpose of this activity is to remove an NLB
cluster

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 Summary
• Availability: percentage of time that servers are
providing service on the network
• Scalability: ability to expand the number of clients or
data that a server can support
• Windows Server 2003 provides two clustering
mechanisms to provide availability and scalability:
server clusters and NLB
• In a server cluster a service runs on a single server
and can be moved to another server (failover)

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 Summary (continued)
• Network Load Balancing (NLB) spreads application
requests from clients among two or more servers
• NLB Manager is used to implement NLB
• When implementing NLB, Microsoft recommends
that you automate the process of application
configuration to ensure that all servers are configured
exactly the same

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