Warm Standby with Windows Server 2003

We have a primary file server for our Windows Server 2003 (Standard Edition) domain. We're running active directory in a plain vanilla type environment. When we recently migrated from an old server to a new one, I set up a DNS entry as Files.OurDomain.local as an Alias (CNAME) to the real server name. I disabled Strict Name Checking (see MSDN link text). All client machines now refer to \\Files or \\Files.OurDomain.local to get to their files. No one ever uses RealServer.OurDomain.local. Printers also use an alias to get to their server.

I plan to use this setup in the event of a significant server problem to switch the dns alias to another server as a poor man's warm standby. Also it should make server migrations in the future very easy. I tried DFS but it didn't give me the comfort that I had exact control over where files were going. The default TTL (Time to Live) for the DNS entries is 1 hour. That's probably what it would take the tech staff to determine that the server had been lost and we would really need to switch to the backup.

Any concerns or problems (or even accolades) with this approach?

Answer

It seems like you're handicapping yourself by not just using DFS or Clustered File Sharing.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/284838

Comments

linux - iDRAC6 Virtual Media native library cannot be loaded

When attempting to mount Virtual Media on a iDRAC6 IP KVM session I get the following error: I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 and: $ javaws -version Java(TM) Web Start 1.6.0_16 $ uname -a Linux aud22419-linux 2.6.28-15-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Mon Aug 31 13:39:06 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ firefox -version Mozilla Firefox 3.0.14, Copyright (c) 1998 - 2009 mozilla.org On Windows + IE it (unsurprisingly) works. I've just gotten off the phone with the Dell tech support and I was told it is known to work on Linux + Firefox, albeit Ubuntu is not supported (by Dell, that is). Has anyone out there managed to mount virtual media in the same scenario?

ubuntu - Monitoring CPU, Mem, disk, on a single server

I've been looking for a simple starter solution for monitoring my [currently] single server hosted solution. Other than Nagios and similar, are there other good (simple) solutions people are using? Answer Everything depends on what you want. For example Munin is very simple, you can install and configure it in less then 10 minutes (on one server), it can sends alarms, make graphs from monitoring cpu, mem. apache connections, eaccellerator, disk io and many many more (it has many plugins). But if you are planning in future get some more machines, munin may not be enough. For example in munin you cant monitor state of individual processes, can't monitor changes in files (for security purpose). So if you wanna only see what is the utilization of basics parameters on your server and don't plan to buy some more servers Munin is what you are looking for, but if you wanna be alarmed when some of your service is down, take more control on what is happeninig on...

hp proliant - Smart Array P822 with HBA Mode?

We get an HP DL360 G8 with an Smart Array P822 controller. On that controller will come a HP StorageWorks D2700 . Does anybody know, that it is possible to run the Smart Array P822 in HBA mode? I found only information about the P410i, who can run HBA. If this is not supported, what you think about the LSI 9207-8e controller? Will this fit good in that setup? The Hardware we get is used but all original from HP. The StorageWorks has 25 x 900 GB SAS 10K disks. Because the disks are not new I would like to use only 22 for raid6, and the rest for spare (I need to see if the disk count is optimal or not for zfs). It would be nice if I'm not stick to SAS in future. As OS I would like to install debian stretch with zfs 0.71 as file system and software raid. I have see that hp has an page for debian to. I would like to use hba mode because it is recommend, that zfs know at most as possible about the disk, and I'm independent from the raid controller. For us zfs have many benefits, ...

Blog

Search This Blog