Gurus,

We have geographically dispersed 5 node MNS cluster (Windows 2003 / Sql
Server 2000). Primary site has 2 nodes and secondary site has 3 nodes. We
had an extrnal audit and they raised an issue that if the seconday site goes
down our cluster will go down coz majority count will be lost. Managagement
is looking for possible suggestions to improve this.

Can you pls help with possible suggestions to overcome this senario.

Can we use any other clustering solution by other providers to overcome this.



Thanks

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote

Option 1: Move one node to your Primary site, so you have 3 at Primary, 2 at
secondary. The benefit of this is that your primary site will remain
operational during a communications issue between the sites. The downside is
that in the event of a site failure of the Primary site, you will need to
manually bring the applications online at the remote site using the
/forcequorum option. See MSKB 258078 for more details.

Option 2: Use a disk based quorum. In a normal disk quorum cluster, the site
where the quorum resides will typically survive the site failure. Benefits
are that either site would survive this failure. Downside is that there are
few geo-cluster solutions that support a shared disk quorum model. I know
that EMC SRDF/CE is one that does support a quorum disk model in a
geo-cluster.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
John

Visit my blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jtoner

"Arshad" <Arshad (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com> wrote