Install and configure windows clusters in VMware

Among VMware's many applications, it can provide a good environment for grading and testing windows clusters. In the past, I explained how to prepare VMWare for the installation and configuration of clusters. Now, I want to show you how to test your configuration after installing a Windows Cluster in VMware.

Start

Before installing the cluster, you must configure the following in VMware:

DNS Login

Public Network Configuration for private networks of domain accounts

Let's take a closer look at these prerequisites.

DNS Login

To properly install the cluster, you must go to your Active Directory-Based Domain Controller (Domain Controller)
, DC) configure a DNS login with the name and IP address of your cluster. For this article, I created a host record with the IP address 192.168.1.75, called
"Mycluster ".

Domain account

To work in a domain, you must create a domain user account. During cluster installation, this account is also granted permissions to the local administrator of each node. In this example, I have created a domain user account named "cluster ".

Private Network Configuration

To make the cluster work properly, you must configure two NICs on each VMWare virtual server. A private network allows communication between each node, which is usually a "Heartbeat ".

To add a nic, open VMware from the Start Menu. Then, select "configuration Editor" from the "Settings" menu ". Select "add" and select "network adapter ". Click "Next"
Step and select "bridge ". Finally, click "end ". The next time you open your virtual server, it will have an extra Nic. Repeat these steps on each virtual machine that will become part of the cluster. In my example
I have two virtual machines (swcluster1 and swcluster2 ).

After you add an attached Nic, you must configure them for heartbeat connection. In my example, I have configured my heartbeat on node 1 (swcluster1) with IP address 10.1.1.2. On Node 2 (swcluster2), I configured the IP address 10.1.1.3.

When setting a fixed IP address, you can also click "advanced" in the TCP/IP properties dialog box and select "Disable NetBIOS on TCP/IP", as shown in. All cluster nodes communicate only through TCP/IP. If you do not select this option, you can encounter problems in the communication between your nodes.

Figure

Public Network Configuration

To configure your public network connection, right-click on your second network card and assign an appropriate IP address, DNS and wins settings. Then, open a command prompt at each node in the cluster and enter ipconfig/All (shown in B) to Verify connectivity and configuration.

Figure B

When each node has a private and a public network address properly configured and you have tested connectivity, you can confirm that each node has been connected to the domain. To do this, right-click "my computer" and click "network identity" (on the machines in the two clusters ), verify that you have connected to the Active Directory domain to be connected.

Then, turn off the power of the two nodes, but let the domain controller continue to run. Before you start to install the cluster, you must know the name and IP address of your virtual server that you assign to the cluster. Remember, in this article, I created a DNS login called "mycluster" and the IP address is 192.168.1.75.

Install cluster service on node 1

To start Windows 2000 cluster service installation, open Node 1 in your cluster. Once the system starts, log on to the domain and select "Add/delete programs" from "Control Panel ".

Select "Add/delete Windows components", and then select "cluster service ". Click "Next" to install the cluster service. If you do not copy the i386 directory to the local drive, you may receive a prompt to insert the CD to the Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Once the cluster service has been installed, you will see a welcome screen.

Click "Next" to view the cluster hardware compatibility list (HCL ). Click "I understand" to go to the next page. Here, you must specify whether this is the first node in the cluster or whether you are adding an existing cluster. In this example, we configure the first node in the cluster. Click "Next" and enter the name of the new cluster.

The following screen will show you the domain account you want to assign to the cluster. I will select the domain account "cluster" that I created at the beginning of this article ". If the domain account is not a member of the node's local administrator, you will be prompted to add the Member to the group. Select "yes" to continue.

On the next screen, you can specify the drive (Figure C) on your shared array managed by the cluster ). By default, all drives are listed under "manage disks. You can accept the default setting or delete the disk if necessary. In this example, I only have one Quorum Drive and one SQL Server partition.

Figure C

The cluster file storage screen allows you to tell the cluster service which disk will be used as the Quorum Drive (Figure D ). The quorum disk displays the processing logs and cluster status information for the cluster. Your Quorum Drive usually should have at least 100 MB. When partitioning their drives, most administrators name the Quorum Drive with the letter Q.

Figure D

The next screen provides you with information about your public and private networks (Figure E ). Read this information and click "Next ".

Figure E

On the private network screen, select "enable this network for clusters" and select "do not limit internal cluster communication (Private Network. I call this connection "Heartbeat", as shown in F.

Figure F

Click "Next" to go to the public network screen. Select "enable this network for cluster use" and select "all communications (hybrid network. Click "Next ".

The next screen allows you to select which network card is used as the master network for internal communication and which is the backup network when the master network fails (Figure G ). Make sure that your private network or heartbeat connection is at the top of the list and click "Next ".

Figure G

Now you can enter the cluster IP address (Figure H ). This serves as the IP address of your virtual cluster or server. It should not have the same IP address with any other cluster, node or device on your network. You also need to enter the mask of your sub-network. Click "Next" and "finish ". Now you can start to install Node 2 in your cluster.

Figure H

Install Node 2

Open Node 1 and open Node 2. Install the cluster device from "Add/delete Windows Components" according to the same procedure. The Wizard starts again and asks whether this is the first or second node of the cluster. Select the second node of the cluster and click "Next ". Enter the name of the cluster you want to join and click "Next ".

Enter the password of the device account and click "Next ". If the account does not belong to the local administrator group, you will be prompted to add it and continue. Click "finish". The cluster device has been successfully installed on the two nodes. Now you can test your VMware configuration.

Test your VMware Cluster

Start to open the "Cluster Administrator" of each node in the cluster (in START | program | management tool) and expand the group directory tree. Right-click the "disk group" and select "Move group" (figure I ). You will see that this group has been moved to node 2.

Figure I

Now, we will expand the group directory and select "disk group 1" to simulate failover. In the details box, right-click the disk and select start fault (Figure J ).

Figure J

You will see some movements, and then the status will return to normal. This happens because the cluster will try to correct itself three times before it will fail over to the next node. To test this process, you must select four failures ".

Next step

Let's stop and let you continue to figure out the VMware and Windows 2000 clusters. In my next article, we will look at how to install and test SQL Server 2000 on a VMware cluster.