Geographically Dispersed Clustering

RecoverPoint Cluster Enabler

John Toner — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:13:00 GMT

One of these days, I do plan on writing about other non-EMC geographically dispersed solutions…I swear . I just need to find the time to give these other products a proper test run before writing my opinions about them so I can give them a fair...(read more)

Adding a disk to a Windows 2008 Failover Cluster using cluster.exe commands

John Toner — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:54:00 GMT

This isn't specific to multi-site clustering, but I've certainly had to use this many times when adding devices to my multi-site clusters. Adding disks to a multi-site Windows 2008 cluster is not as easy as it should be. In Windows 2008, Microsoft...(read more)

New Feature in 2008 R2 - Cluster Shared Volumes

John Toner — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:42:00 GMT

This week, Microsoft is announcing that Windows 2008 R2 will add a new feature to Failover Clusters called “Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)”. This feature is being introduced so that they can support the Live Migration feature for Hyper-V. You...(read more)

EMC Cluster Enabler Updates

John Toner — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:50:00 GMT

It’s been a really busy month for us. This past month, EMC has released a new version of SRDF/CE, MV/CE and internally announced a new addition to the Cluster Enabler family. I don’t think it’s been publicly announced, so I’ll...(read more)

SQL Strikes Again

John Toner — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:05:00 GMT

I learned today that SQL 2008 will actually not install by default in many multi-site cluster solutions. Why? Well, during the SQL 2008 installation, it runs through a Configuration Checker where one of the tests the environment to ensure that the cluster...(read more)

Multiple Subnets with Windows 2008 Clusters

John Toner — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:27:00 GMT

I’ve been playing around with Microsoft Windows 2008 clusters for a while now trying to test out some of the new features and how they will affect multi-site clusters. One of the best new features (in my opinion) in 2008 clusters is the ability...(read more)

SQL 2008 Team - Please Add multi-subnet support!

John Toner — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:58:00 GMT

I was informed that feedback for Microsoft product groups should be done through the http://connect.microsoft.com page. So I've submitted a request to add support for clusters running multiple subnets here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer...(read more)

SQL 2008

John Toner — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:44:00 GMT

One of the great new features of Windows 2008 Failover Clustering is the removal of the "same subnet" restriction. This is a huge feature for multi-site clusters as I personally know of several customers that did not implement a multi-site cluster...(read more)

EMC MirrorView Cluster Enabler Released!

John Toner — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:16:00 GMT

If you’ve read through some of my previous posts , you might have picked up on the fact that this product was coming soon. EMC has finally released an SRDF/CE equivalent for the Clariion arrays utilizing MirrorView. Sure, we’ve got other products for...(read more)

Cluster Enabler 3.0 Released

John Toner — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:56:00 GMT

EMC recently released the latest version of SRDF/CE for MSCS. This new release has the following changes: New Name - The overall product line has been renamed to "Cluster Enabler" and the first product released in this line is SRDF/CE for MSCS...(read more)

Clustering Webcasts on Demand

John Toner — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:32:00 GMT

Microsoft gave some great webcasts related to 2008 clustering last month. If you missed any of these sessions, you can view these recording on-demand and/or snag the PPT files here: Building High Availability Infrastructures with Windows Server 2008 Failover...(read more)

Future Releases of SRDF/CE

John Toner — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 18:48:00 GMT

It's been far too long since I've written a blog post, mostly due to the holiday rush. There's much going on in my world of geo-clustering with 2008 RC1 being released, and also there's been some development activity for SRDF/CE. I’ve...(read more)

What applications are supported by SRDF/CE?

John Toner — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:04:00 GMT

I often get asked if SRDF/CE supports various versions of Exchange or SQL, especially just after a new version is released. If you are one those that have asked, you have likely received my sarcastic, yet completely accurate answer that SRDF/CE does NOT...(read more)

Quorum Arbitration in a Geographically Dispersed Cluster

John Toner — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 17:30:00 GMT

Thanks to Oliver Simpson for his comments and his question…how does quorum arbitration work in a geographically dispersed cluster and how is this different between SRDF/CE and MirrorView. This is a great question and I hope I don’t bore you with too many...(read more)

SRDF/CE Training

John Toner — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:16:00 GMT

In a past life, I used to travel the globe delivering training classes to EMC personnel and a few select customers. This training was not widely known about and was only given to customers that begged for more knowledge about the product. I am happy to...(read more)

MirrorView/CE

John Toner — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:24:00 GMT

Continuing my topic about geoclustering on a Clariion, we've recently discovered that my previous scenario that I tested can actually be FULLY SUPPORTED by Microsoft and EMC! Thanks to Edwin for pointing out the following entry in the Windows Catalog...(read more)

Majority Node Set Clustering

John Toner — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:41:00 GMT

When I was first introduced MNS, I hated this little feature of Windows 2003. In my opinion, MNS has created some confusion in the marketplace as it has been positioned (incorrectly) by some as “the” solution for geographically dispersed clustering. I...(read more)

Geographically Dispersed Clustering with Clariion

John Toner — Mon, 14 May 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Ira Pfeifer for jump starting this topic…I would’ve hit this subject eventually as this has been a rather frustrating experience that I’ve gone through over the years. One of the things that I’ve been pushing for many, many years at EMC is to...(read more)

EMC SRDF/CE for MSCS

John Toner — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:40:00 GMT

Let me first discuss my pet project, SRDF/CE for MSCS. What is SRDF/CE you ask? Well it is EMC’s geographically dispersed clustering software. SRDF/CE is an EMC proprietary product that is used to integrate EMC’s SRDF technology with MSCS. Basically,...(read more)

Welcome to my blog!

John Toner — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:31:00 GMT

I’ve finally decided that it’s time to start a blog. Why? Well, it wasn’t only a bandwagon thing…I thought that this might help to keep me motivated to do some of the things that I’ve been intending on doing for many, many moons. I hope that if I put...(read more)