Hi everybody,

Perhaps this is a bit off topic, but I could not find a better group to
ask. I currently have a two node Microsoft cluster. One of my resource
groups (besides many others) is a windows file share.

I am considering moving the file share off the cluster, but I do not
know what are my options. I am looking for a solution which will provide
redundancy and will allow me to create windows file shares (NTFS).

Can you tell me what solutions are on the market that I could utilize to
achieve this?

Thank you.

Adam Przestroga

If you want redundancy, then why are you moving it off of the cluster? That
said, have you looked at DFS?

--
Tom

----------------------------------------------------
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP, MCTS
SQL Server MVP
Toronto, ON Canada
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Tom.Moreau


"Adam Przestroga" <aprzestroga (AT) op (DOT) pl> wrote

Hi everybody,

Perhaps this is a bit off topic, but I could not find a better group to
ask. I currently have a two node Microsoft cluster. One of my resource
groups (besides many others) is a windows file share.

I am considering moving the file share off the cluster, but I do not
know what are my options. I am looking for a solution which will provide
redundancy and will allow me to create windows file shares (NTFS).

Can you tell me what solutions are on the market that I could utilize to
achieve this?

Thank you.

Adam Przestroga

Perhaps, a straightforward network file share will suffice? This really
depends on your exact requirements.

The reason you use a file share resource on a cluster is to ensure that when
there is a failover, the file share will still be available to the client and
the failover remains transparent. If you move the file share off the cluster,
this is no longer an issue, and all prod network shares should already have
redundancy built in.

Linchi

"Adam Przestroga" wrote:

Tom Moreau wrote:
I would like to move it off the cluster for several reasons, but the
most importantly because whenever I need to do something with my SQL
server, it impacts my file share resource groups, as well.

What I would like to know is what technologies are there that would
allow me to "expose" my shared drive in a fashion similar to clustered
file share. What I mean by that is in clustered file share the share is
exposed on the network as "virtual server\share name" under single IP
address. If I understand DFS correctly, you would end-up with two
synchronized file shares server_A\share_x and server_B\share_x. Am I
getting this correctly?

Thanks,
APrzestroga

Yes, sort of. You can have a domain-based DFS so that clients can connect
to one underlying server or another. Thus, the clients only need to know
the DFS root target, not the names of the servers. Here's a link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../cc738688.aspx

--
Tom

----------------------------------------------------
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCITP, MCTS
SQL Server MVP
Toronto, ON Canada
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Tom.Moreau


"Adam Przestroga" <aprzestroga (AT) op (DOT) pl> wrote

Tom Moreau wrote:
I would like to move it off the cluster for several reasons, but the
most importantly because whenever I need to do something with my SQL
server, it impacts my file share resource groups, as well.

What I would like to know is what technologies are there that would
allow me to "expose" my shared drive in a fashion similar to clustered
file share. What I mean by that is in clustered file share the share is
exposed on the network as "virtual server\share name" under single IP
address. If I understand DFS correctly, you would end-up with two
synchronized file shares server_A\share_x and server_B\share_x. Am I
getting this correctly?

Thanks,
APrzestroga

Tom Moreau wrote:

Regards,
Adam