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WHITE PAPER VERITAS™ Cluster Server 2.0 for Windows 2000 Overview 1
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W H I T E P A P E R

VERITAS™ Cluster Server 2.0 for Windows 2000 Overview

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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................... 4 VERITAS CLUSTER SERVER 2.0 FOR WINDOWS 2000 COMPARISON OVERVIEW .................. 4

Common Myths of Windows Clustering: ............................................................................................... 4 BUILDING ON BACKUP ......................................................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION TO VERITAS CLUSTER SERVER........................................................................... 5

Minimum SYSTEM Requirements......................................................................................................... 6 VCS Delivers HIGHER RETURN on Investement.................................................................................... 8

Maximize Use of Existing Hardware...................................................................................................... 8 MYTH: All hardware in a cluster must be identical........................................................................... 8 MYTH: Upgrading a cluster configuration introduces application downtime. .................................. 8

Simplify Cluster Management ................................................................................................................ 9 Add & Remove Cluster Nodes ‘On The Fly’ ......................................................................................... 9

MYTH: Applications are vulnerable when performing server maintenance...................................... 9 MYTH: Capacity-on-demand is a feature only available using proprietary hardware....................... 9

Choices of Cluster Architecture.............................................................................................................. 9 Local Clustering.................................................................................................................................... 11 Campus Clustering................................................................................................................................ 11

MYTH: Clustering can’t protect against site-wide failure. .............................................................. 12 Wide Area Disaster Recovery............................................................................................................... 12 Cluster Configurations .......................................................................................................................... 12

MYTH: Every server requires a dedicated standby server. .............................................................. 13 N+1 and N-to-N .................................................................................................................................... 13

ADAPTIVE WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT ........................................................................................ 14 Application Load Balancing ................................................................................................................. 14 System Zones ........................................................................................................................................ 16

POWERFUL MANAGEMENT TOOLSET ............................................................................................ 16 Simplified Management........................................................................................................................ 16 Wizard Driven Agent Configuration .................................................................................................... 17 Granular User Privileges....................................................................................................................... 17 Event Notification................................................................................................................................. 17

EXTENSIVE APPLICATION SUPPORT............................................................................................... 17 MYTH: Applications must be “cluster-aware” to be used in a cluster............................................. 18

Custom Agents...................................................................................................................................... 18 Multi-Tier Application Support ............................................................................................................ 18 File & Print Servers .............................................................................................................................. 18

MYTH: Microsoft applications are not supported in a VERITAS cluster server environment. ...... 18 Technical Support Alliance Network (TSANET) Support Agreement ................................................ 19 VERITAS Enabled................................................................................................................................ 19

TRUE ENTERPRISE DATA CENTER SOLUTION.............................................................................. 19 Inter/Intra-Domain Failover.................................................................................................................. 19 Cross-Platform Support ........................................................................................................................ 19

FULL SOLUTION STACK ..................................................................................................................... 20

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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Volume Manager .................................................................................................................................. 20 Volume Replicator ................................................................................................................................ 20 Global Cluster Manager........................................................................................................................ 21

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 21 Appendix A............................................................................................................................................... 22

Return on Investment – The Value of Larger Clusters ......................................................................... 22

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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INTRODUCTION VERITAS believes that planning for availability in the Windows data center requires more than just a solid backup and recovery strategy. Best practices have been defined through years of experience to begin with a foundation of data redundancy using disk volume mirroring or striping. Applications must then be kept online at all times through a scalable cluster infrastructure, followed by an automated disaster recovery plan to facilitate wide-area data center migration. These practices are delivered as part of an integrated VERITAS solution suite to provide businesses with the cost advantage of building on an existing backup solution, while allowing for complementary layers of availability to be added as business needs evolve. This means that 86% of the Fortune 500 who rely on VERITAS for backup and recovery have a sound investment in not just a data protection solution, but in part of an overall data center availability and recovery strategy. Similar to the rudimentary backup support that is included with the Windows operating system, Microsoft includes basic volume management and cluster components for small business use. VERITAS builds on these components – some of which are actually light weight versions of VERITAS products - with enterprise class solutions for Backup, Volume Management, and High Availability. This paper provides an overview of the features that VERITAS Cluster Server offers and highlights the business value that has made it the leading cluster solution in the industry today. It will also make a point to dispel common myths that are generally associated with clustering on the Windows platform and can be used as a comparison document based on these accounts. Areas of focus include ways to maximize hardware utilization, simplify management, plan for disaster recovery, consolidate servers, and lower hardware costs. An online demo of VERITAS Cluster Server can be found on the VERITAS web site, at http://eval.veritas.com/downloads/pro/vcs/demo_cs.swf, or for more information regarding VERITAS solutions for Windows 2000, visit the VERITAS Web site at http://www.veritas.com/. VERITAS CLUSTER SERVER 2.0 FOR WINDOWS 2000 COMPARISON OVERVIEW These common myths associated with clustering on the Windows platform are addressed with the capabilities of VERITAS Cluster Server. COMMON MYTHS OF WINDOWS CLUSTERING: Myth: All hardware in a cluster must be identical Myth: Upgrading a cluster configuration introduces application downtime Myth: Applications are vulnerable when performing server maintenance Myth: Capacity-on-demand is a feature only available using proprietary hardware Myth: Clustering can’t protect against site-wide failure Myth: Every server requires a dedicated standby server Myth: Applications must be “cluster aware” in a cluster Myth: Microsoft applications are not supported using VERITAS Cluster Server

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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BUILDING ON BACKUP Backup is the foundation for any data recovery plan, but restoring data from tape can be time consuming and requires applications to be reinstalled, restored, or manually restarted. For customers who have more demanding time-to-recovery requirements for their applications, VERITAS Cluster Server provides automated application recovery within seconds of failure, with no loss of data. Implementing a high availability solution like VERITAS Cluster Server doesn’t replace the need for a backup strategy. Clustering provides faster application recovery in the event of a hardware or software failure. An issue such as database corruption would still require a valid copy of the database to be restored from a previous point in time. VERITAS Cluster Server has a proven record of reliability and success protecting mission-critical production applications in many of the largest corporations in the world. Providing customers with solutions for High Availability and Disaster Recovery is critical to VERITAS – so critical that 30% of annual revenue is invested in Research and Development to improve on existing technology and develop new solutions. As the most widely used cluster solution on the market today, VCS Engineering and Customer Support teams are driven to deliver rapid fixes and product enhancements to customers. Clustering is at the heart of the VERITAS Software philosophy. "The VERITAS view is simple: Create the best technology, make it run on all platforms, on all storage hardware, and with any application," says Mark Bregman, Executive VP, Product Engineering, VERITAS Software. "It's no coincidence that we are the leader in high availability."

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Market Leader VERITAS Cluster Server (VCS) was recently awarded Network Magazine’s Product of the Year for 2002 and identified by IDC as the #1 market leader for both Windows and UNIX clustering.

NTRODUCTION TO VERITAS CLUSTER SERVER VERITAS Cluster Server (VCS) provides value to businesses that require applications or services to be available constantly, with little or no downtime per year. VCS can monitor applications, services, and their supporting infrastructure for failure, and take responsive actions if a failure occurs, such as moving the application and its dependant resources to a healthy server. Many advanced cluster capabilities found in VERITAS Cluster Server are not available in traditional 2-node high availability solutions. Features such as role-based security, intelligent workload management, web-based administration, and N+1 clustering

opyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or egistered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their espective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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all contribute towards lowering the total cost overhead of a high availability solution. From a cluster architecture perspective, VERITAS Cluster Server is based on a proven technology design that has awarded it market dominance in the high availability space, with thousands of production installations worldwide. Because the concepts used by VCS might be different than other Windows solutions, they will be briefly defined here. MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Supported Operating Systems and Applications

• Minimum 1 node, maximum 32 nodes per cluster • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Advanced Server, or Datacenter Server • Standard versions of all supported applications

Shared Storage

• Typical configurations require shared disks to support applications that migrate between nodes in the cluster.

• SCSI or Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) can be used to access shared storage. Network Adapters

• VCS requires at least three network adapters per system (one network adapter to connect each system to the public network, and at least two network adapters for the private networks on each system). It is recommended to rout each private network adapter through a separate hub or switch to avoid single points of failure.

Disk Space

• Each VCS system requires at least 225MB of free space on the local installation drive. RAM

• Each VCS system requires at least 128MB of RAM. If using VCS with VERITAS Volume Manager, 256MB are required and 512 are recommended.

Cluster A cluster is a group of independent computers working together as a single system to ensure that mission-critical applications and resources are as highly available as possible. The group is managed as a single system, shares a common namespace, and is specifically designed to tolerate component or application failures and to support the addition or removal of components in a way that is transparent to users.

VERITAS Cluster Server employs a shared disk architecture, and supports both shared SCSI implementations as well as Storage Area Network (SAN) configurations.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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Shared Disk Shared disk refers to the fact that storage resources are physically connected to all nodes in the clustervia SCSI or Fibre Channel bus. By using SCSI-2 reserve and release commands, VCS ensures that no two servers in a cluster can access the same disk at the same time. VERITAS considers a shared nothing architecture to be a configuration where the nodes in a cluster do not share a storage bus and the data on each host remains static.

CS does not use a quorum disk architecture. Instead of storing cluster configuration information on a hared volume, VCS uses redundant network interconnects for heartbeats and cluster status. This model acilitates a much more scalable and reliable cluster design. For example, if the cluster configuration on quorum disk is corrupted, the cluster is rendered non-functional and all nodes are unable to start. In ddition, core updates to the cluster software cannot be made while online. VERITAS Cluster Server ses a Global Atomic Broadcast mechanism, or GAB, which is used replicate the cluster configuration nformation over the heartbeat network rather than storing it on disk. Changes are made on all systems imultaneously, so every system always has the latest configuration.

CS does not use TCP/IP as a heartbeat protocol. VERITAS has designed a Low Latency Transport rotocol, or LLT, to facilitate cluster communication using much less overhead than a standard IP stack. CP/IP can run in parallel with LLT, and in the event all heartbeat links are disconnected within a luster, LLT can operate over a public network link as a last resort for cluster communications.

or more detailed information about VCS communication infrastructure, please refer to the VERITAS nowledge Base Article #236534, or follow this link: http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/236534.htm

Split-Brain Split-brain refers to a state where all communication paths, or heartbeats links, between nodes in a cluster have been lost. When this happens, the cluster nodes can’t determine if a network failure occurred or if the other nodes in the cluster have failed. If they assume node failure, there is a risk that an application may be brought online while already online on another node. To prevent this from happening, VERITAS Cluster Server uses SCSI-2 disk reservations in addition to redundant heartbeat links. When a disk or collection of disks is brought online using VCS, they are reserved by the system which brought them online and cannot be accessed by other servers in the cluster.

opyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or egistered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their espective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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Applications are viewed by VCS as a collection of resources – each resource representing a component of an application, such as a network card, an IP address, a disk, a virtual host name, or an application’s services. A collection of resources specific to an application is contained in a Service Group. For example, a cluster may have three Service Groups – one for Exchange 2000, one for a Printshare, and one for a Fileshare. These groups can be moved independently of one another between systems in the cluster. When a failure occurs, VCS will restart the failed component or migrate the entire application Service Group to another server using a process called failover. VCS DELIVERS HIGHER RETURN ON INVESTEMENT MAXIMIZE USE OF EXISTING HARDWARE Getting the most efficient use out of existing hardware can be challenging. Using open systems software from VERITAS means a single solution can be used across multiple vendors’ hardware, whether that’s storage arrays, servers, network infrastructure, or operating systems. MYTH: All hardware in a cluster must be identical.

Purchasing a new server to host an application in the data center is common, but purchasing two servers for every application to account for high availability can become expensive. In some cases, it may not be necessary to have a standby server with as much processing power as a primary server. If a failure occurs, it may be acceptable for an application to run in degraded mode on a less powerful server

until the primary is repaired. These servers may not even be the same make or model.

MYTH All hardware in a cluster must be identical.

VERITAS Clusters offer the flexibility to include systems of different hardware specifications, with only a few basic requirements for compatibility. This allows existing, older hardware to be used as a backup for new, more powerful hardware. Details about minimum requirements can be found in the VCS Installation and Configuration Guide, located on the VERITAS technical support web site.

MYTH: Upgrading a cluster configuration introduces application downtime.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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SIMPLIFY CLUSTER MANAGEMENT

Upgrading a cluster configuration can seem to be a daunting task. In a standard two node Windows cluster, the standby server is upgraded first, followed by a migration of the application from the existing node to the new node, and then the remaining node is upgraded. This not only introduces downtime during failover, but a risk that the application may not properly come online using the new configuration.

MYTH Upgrading a cluster configuration intro-duces application downtime.

VERITAS Cluster Server allows the underlying cluster configuration to be upgraded without affecting applications. Using an automated installation wizard, the VCS services are stopped on all nodes in the cluster and updated to the new configuration – all while the applications monitored by VCS remain online. Once the upgrade is complete, the VCS services are restarted and monitoring of the application continues as normal. ADD & REMOVE CLUSTER NODES ‘ON THE FLY’ Adding and removing nodes to and from VERITAS Clusters is a simple operation that benefits future business growth, online cluster maintenance, and capacity-on-demand challenges. MYTH: Applications are vulnerable when performing server maintenance.

Server maintenance is an ongoing practice to continually upgrade or service network adapters, memory, processors, or other devices. In a standard two-node cluster configuration, work must be performed on the standby server while the primary server is hosting an application. Most environments, however, implement clustering due to the serious economical and business impact of application downtime.

MYTH Applications are vulnerable when performing server maintenance.

By performing maintenance on the standby server, it effectively leaves the application vulnerable to hardware or operating system failure. Using even a simple three-node configuration with VERITAS Cluster Server, one server can be taken offline for maintenance while still providing high availability for the application using the remaining two servers. MYTH: Capacity-on-demand is a feature only available using proprietary hardware.

In environments where application usage demand increases during specific times of the year, such as order processing during the month of December, it may be desirable to migrate an application to a more powerful server temporarily. By simply adding a new server to the cluster, it can be used as the primary application server and removed again when it is no longer needed. This allows server capacity to be added to the environment as

increasing business needs demand more from an application.

MYTH Capacity-on-demand is a feature only available using proprietary hardware.

CHOICES OF CLUSTER ARCHITECTURE VERITAS recognizes that not all data center environments are alike. Building an infrastructure for high availability using independent, two-node clusters may not meet the management or availability requirements of every business. Using VERITAS Cluster Server as a stand alone solution or in combination with other VERITAS products, availability can be achieved in almost any environment.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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Three primary architectures are used as the foundation for application availability in a Windows environment:

• Local area clustering using shared SCSI or SAN attached storage • Stretch clustering for campus or metropolitan area environments using mirrored or replicated

storage • Wide area clustering for disaster recovery spanning larger geographic distances

Local Clustering Stretch Clustering Wide Area Disaster Recovery This standard cluster configuration uses shared storage between nodes using either SCSI or Fibre Channel interconnects. All nodes are connected via redundant ethernet links for private cluster communication. A single standby server can be used to provide redundancy for multiple active servers.

Organizations using a recovery site on the same or nearby campus may choose to create a stretch cluster. This can be done by stretching a mirror over a SAN, or by replicating data over an IP network (also called Replicated Data Cluster).

Once clusters are deployed at multiple sites, it is possible to provide application failover from one cluster to another. Replication is used to copy data from one site to another, and site migration can be automated through Global Cluster Manager (GCM).

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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LOCAL CLUSTERING Local high availability based on a shared disk architecture should be the first method of deployment while clustering for server failure or complete disaster recovery. This allows an application to resume from failure using locally attached storage rather than relying on a remote copy. The standby host uses the same physical data set that was used by the primary host. As a best practice, failover should always be done locally for application or server faults – failover to a remote site should only be used in the event of a site-wide disaster. Another very important aspect of local clustering is that application recovery happens automatically, and failing back to the primary requires no resynchronization of data. Using stretch or geographic clusters sometimes requires manual intervention to initiate failover. This is done to avoid inadvertent application migration to a remote site due to cluster heartbeat failure. CAMPUS CLUSTERING As customers see an increasing need to protect from natural disasters and site failure, campus cluster or replicated data configurations become a popular alternative to a full-scale disaster recovery solution. Implementing a Campus Cluster will provide a lightweight form of disaster recovery for environments where a traditional wide area disaster recovery solution using replication is not suitable. This solution eliminates both the hardware array and the physical building as a single point of failure in a cluster, and effectively provides application and data fault tolerance in the event of nearly all failure scenarios with the exception of campus-wide disasters. While this configuration is encouraged, the recommended VERITAS disaster recovery implementation includes VERITAS Cluster Server and VERITAS Volume Manager for automated local system and application availability, VERITAS Volume Replicator for data replication to a remote cluster in a geographically distant location, and VERITAS Global Cluster Manager for automation of site-to-site recovery and cross-cluster management. A Campus Cluster configuration can easily be scaled to a full disaster recovery solution as business requirements evolve.

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Campus Cluster A Campus Cluster is a configuration where the nodes of a single cluster are located in separatephysical buildings, each with a local storage array and SAN interconnects between buildings.

VCS and Volume Manager wjointly developed with a speciffocus on providing the most robust and flexible CampCluster solution available Used together, they offer these specific advantages in a CCluster configuration:

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opyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or gistered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their spective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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• Dynamic volume support within a cluster • Protection from common storage management errors in a clustered environment • Optional automatic failover in site-failure scenarios

For more detailed information, please refer to the VERITAS Campus Cluster Solution for Windows 2000 Whitepaper found on the VERITAS web site, or go directly to http://eval.veritas.com/downloads/pro/vcs_vm_campuscluster_wp.pdf.

MYTH: Clustering can’t protect against site-wide failure.

WIDE AREA DISASTER RECOVERY Once a local cluster is deployed, it may be necessary to provide a remote failover target to provide protection for applications in the event the entire site or cluster is destroyed, or if there are no available resources left within a cluster to host an application. By creating a cluster at a remote site, VERITAS Global

Cluster Manager (GCM) can be used to facilitate application failover between clusters. Using TCP/IP to facilitate cluster-to-cluster communications, clusters can be distributed anywhere in the world. GCM provides centralized, web-based management of distributed Cluster Server clusters, running on a variety of UNIX and Windows platforms.

MYTH Clustering can’t protect against site-wide failure.

Applications can be migrated completely with a single click – including DNS server updates for client redirection to the recovery site. This is especially important in a disaster situation, where stepping through a twenty-page recovery document is a task not suitable for a panic situation. A single notification to alert the administrator and confirm site migration is all that should be necessary before bringing applications back online using a remote data set. Global clustering reduces the overall cost of disaster recovery by allowing rapid application migration with no loss of data. Less administration is required to manage a global availability environment by centralizing control of geographically distributed clusters. Additionally, using a single web console simplifies interaction within a distributed high availability and disaster recovery environment. For more information on Global Cluster Manager, see the ‘Full Solution Stack’ section later in this document. CLUSTER CONFIGURATIONS Most cluster configurations on Windows today are limited to two-node Active / Passive or Active / Active application failover environments. While this approach does provide application availability, it has the disadvantage of incurring the highest total cost overhead and the greatest management overhead. Since each active server requires an identical or similar server standing by until a failure occurs, hardware is consumed at a one-to-one ratio. Additionally, as more hosts are clustered, each clustered pair requires monitoring and management - and this cost increases linearly with the number of hosts or applications that are clustered. As implementations of Storage Area Networks have become common in the data center, cluster designs that scale beyond two nodes have dramatically reduced the cost overhead associated with high

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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availability by simplifying cluster management, consolidating servers, and managing application workload. MYTH: Every server requires a dedicated standby server.

Scaling beyond two servers in a cluster has significant advantages for hardware utilization. In an example where two applications are going to be clustered, SQL 2000 and Exchange 2000, four servers would normally be required - one primary and one standby server for each application. Rather than building two, two-node clusters, a single three-node cluster would be

easier to manage and still provide availability for both applications. This model can be scaled further to facilitate many primary servers with multiple standby servers in larger configurations.

MYTH Every server requires a dedicated standby server.

As described in the following paragraphs, consolidating standby servers in these N+1 or N-to-N configurations is an immediate and measurable way to reduce the overall costs of availability. N+1 AND N-TO-N To illustrate the difference between a standard Active / Passive configuration and an N+1, or hot-spare configuration, a SQL 2000 environment with three separate database instances will be used. Normally, a separate two-node cluster for each database would be necessary, for a total of six servers. Since each database will most likely use at least 50% of the processing and memory capacity of the server, it would be impractical to operate in an Active / Active configuration. If a failure occurred in a two-node Active / Active cluster, one server would be overloaded by two databases, which would effectively prevent access to both databases rather than just one.

An N-to-1 configuration with SQL 2000.

In the figure to the right, three active database servers are protected using a single standby server. If a failure occurs, the database is automatically migrated to the standby host. Once the primary server is repaired, it then becomes the standby server in the cluster. In this configuration, four servers are used instead of six – saving 33% in hardware utilization. As customers move into larger and larger clusters, the need for “Server Consolidation” becomes evident. A large number of applications are being deployed on a more limited number of “Enterprise Class” servers. This is a perfect place for true N-to-N clustering.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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N-to-N refers to multiple applications running on multiple servers, with each application capable of being failed over to different servers in the cluster. For example, imagine a 3-node cluster, with each node supporting two critical database instances. On failure of any node, each of the two instances is started on a different node, ensuring one node does not get overloaded. This is a logical evolution of N+1, where there is not a need for a “standby system” but rather “standby capacity” in the cluster. Extending this model further, Any-to-Any configurations can be created using multiple standby servers for a number of active servers. This is similar to an N+1 configuration, but adds the ability to protect against multiple failures in the cluster. With the ability to scale up to 32 nodes per Windows cluster, VCS allows administrators to design solutions to meet their data center needs today and for the future.

In this example, VCS reacts to a server fault by distributing multiple SQL databases to nodes which can best handle the application load.

ADAPTIVE WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT VCS includes a powerful application load-balancing mechanism at the service group level, known as “Adaptive Workload Management.” This feature allows the cluster to determine the optimal system on which to host an application during startup or when recovering from a failure. With Adaptive Workload Management, system capacity and application load can be defined by the administrator either statically or dynamically based on changing server resource load.

Adaptive Workload Management: In the event of a fault, VERITAS Cluster Server makes intelligent decisions regarding application failover by monitoring server capacity thresholds and available resources on alternate servers.

APPLICATION LOAD BALANCING VCS has three primary settings for Failover Policy. These are Priority, Round Robin and Load. Priority is the most basic - the system with the lowest priority in the cluster is chosen. This is ideal for a

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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simple two-node cluster, or a small cluster with a very small number of Service Groups. Priority is the default behavior in VCS. Round Robin chooses the system running the least number of Service Groups as a failover target. This is ideal for larger clusters running a large number of Service Groups of essentially the same server load characteristics, such as similar databases or applications. Load is the most flexile and powerful policy. It provides the framework for true server consolidation in the data center. Load policy is made of two components, Capacity & Load and Limits & Prerequisites. System Limits and Group Prerequisites add additional capability to the load policy. The user can set a list of finite resources available on a server (Limits), such as available memory, processor usage, etc. Each Service Group is then assigned a set of Prerequisites. For example, a SQL database may need 256MB of memory and two 1.5 GHz processors. VCS load policy will first determine a subset of all systems that meet these criteria and then choose the lowest loaded system from this set. In this way, an unloaded system that does not meet all the Prerequisites of a group will not be chosen. As soon as the decision is made to online a group on a particular system, the Prerequisites of the group is subtracted from the Limits of the system, so a database migration would decrease available memory of a server by 256MB. System Limits and Group Prerequisites work independently of Failover Policy. Prerequisites are used to determine a sub set of eligible systems that a group can be started on during failover or startup. Once a list of systems meeting proper Prerequisites is created, VCS will then follow the configured Failover Policy. System Capacity sets a fixed capacity to servers and a fixed demand (Load) for Service Groups. For example, imagine a 4-node cluster consisting of two 16-processor servers and two 8-processor servers. The administrator sets a Capacity on each 16-CPU to 200 and each 8-CPU to 100. Each Service Group running on a system has a predefined Load value. When a group comes online, its Load is subtracted from the Capacity of the system. The cluster engine keeps track of the Available Capacity of all systems in the cluster. Available Capacity is determined by subtracting Load of all groups online on a system from the system Capacity. When a failover must occur, the cluster engine determines the system with the highest Available Capacity and starts the group on that system. During a failover scenario involving multiple groups, failover decisions are made serially to facilitate the proper load based choice. For example, if a server fails that is hosting two Fileshares, VCS will move one Fileshare to the system with the most Available Capacity, then recalculate Available Capacity on the servers and move the next Fileshare appropriately. System Capacity is a soft restriction. This means that the value can go below zero. In the event of consecutive failures, Available Capacity can be negative. Overload warning provides the notification piece of the load policy. When a server sustains a pre-determined load level set by a Load Warning Level (static or dynamically determined) for a predetermined time, a trigger is initiated. For example, if load on a server running a business critical database reaches and stays above a user defined threshold, operators will be immediately notified. The

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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trigger could then scan the system for any Service Groups with a lower priority than the database (such as an internal HR app) and move the application to a lesser-loaded system or even shut the application down. The key here is the framework is completely flexible. The administrator is free to implement any overload management scheme desired. SYSTEM ZONES System Zones provide a sub set of systems to use in an initial failover decision. A Service Group will try to stay within its zone before choosing a move to another zone. For example, imagine a typical 3-tier application infrastructure with web servers, application servers and database servers. The application and database servers are configured in a single cluster. Using System Zones would require a Service Group in the application zone to try to fail to another server in the application zone if it is available. If not available, it would then fail to the database zone based on Load and Limits. In this configuration, excess capacity and limits available on the database backend would essentially be kept in reserve for the larger load of a database failover, while application servers would handle the load of any groups in the application zone. During consecutive failures, excess capacity in the cluster is still available to any Service Group. The System Zones feature allows fine tuning application failover decisions, yet still retains the flexibility to fail anywhere in the cluster if necessary.

In this example, multiple zones are created to separate production from staging servers within a

cluster. This is beneficial for server maintenance, off-host backup or off-host processing, or application upgrades or staging. Servers can be provisioned in and out of the cluster or cluster zones as necessary without bringing the application offline.

POWERFUL MANAGEMENT TOOLSET SIMPLIFIED MANAGEMENT VERITAS Cluster Server consolidates islands of two-node clusters into fewer, more manageable cluster configurations. Using a web-based interface, customers can monitor and manage clusters remotely, from any standard browser. A Java console provides management of multiple clusters on any platform from a single console. For data centers using disparate platforms for front end web serving and back end database processing, a consistent management model is a clear advantage.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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Management of clusters also goes beyond the local site. Once multiple clusters in multiple sites have been deployed, Global Cluster Manager (GCM) allows applications to failover between clusters and consolidates cluster administration with replication using an extension of the existing VCS management console. From a nation-wide view, an administrator can view all clusters at all sites from a single console, then drill down into a cluster at one site, which will transparently move from the GCM console into the VCS interface. This type of management integration is being developed for Volume Manager, Volume Replicator, SANPoint Control, and other products in addition to Global Cluster Manager. VERITAS is moving to a model where one management framework will provide administration for all levels of availability at any level in the data center, anywhere in the world. WIZARD DRIVEN AGENT CONFIGURATION Every application, including File and Print shares, is installed and configured using automated wizards. These wizards assist the user with configuration of applications or services in the cluster by using standard, Win32 based interfaces that allow browsing for directory shares, point and click selection of services, drop down lists for network cards and shared disks, and proactive detection of requirements. Integration points between VERITAS Cluster Server and VERITAS Volume Manager are used heavily in the agent wizards as seen in the auto-discovery of clustered volumes and their corresponding properties. GRANULAR USER PRIVILEGES Cluster operations are enabled or restricted depending on the permissions granted. There are various privilege levels for users administrating VERITAS Cluster Server, which are defined at the application service level. Each category is assigned specific privileges, depending on the amount of access desired. Examples of user roles include Cluster Administrator, Operator or Guest, with Cluster Administrator having the most privileges and Cluster Guest the least. This allows an Exchange administrator, for example, to have enough access to online/offline Exchange, while the Print operator can only manage the Printshare in the same cluster. EVENT NOTIFICATION VCS includes a highly available event notification system. This feature allows event notifications to be sent even if the system triggering the event has failed. Using standard SMTP and SNMP communication methods, administrators are alerted based on notification policies and thresholds. EXTENSIVE APPLICATION SUPPORT VERITAS has a long history of working closely with application vendors to jointly support applications running in VCS environments, and Microsoft is no exception to this. Microsoft Exchange, SQL, IIS, and SPS (SharePoint Portal Server) are all developed with the engineering support of each product team, with the understanding that VCS is promoting sales of these products into the enterprise Windows market. As a result, VERITAS is able to provide robust, easy-to-use solutions for all of the enterprise Windows applications available today, along with a joint support agreement in place to manage customer escalations.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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Significant engineering effort goes into creating VCS agents to support the latest applications. Each agent requires an installer to push the application configuration to all nodes in the cluster, as well as a configuration wizard to assist in customizing the application for the environment. Today, VERITAS Cluster Server supports many Windows applications, including Microsoft Exchange 5.5 and 2000, Microsoft SQL 7 and 2000, IIS 5.0, Oracle 8i and 9i, Lotus Domino, File / Print, SAP, and nearly any other application through VERITAS Enterprise Consulting Services. MYTH: Applications must be “cluster-aware” to be used in a cluster.

Many organizations need a variety of applications to address their specific business and operational requirements. Some of these applications may be developed in-house or have extensive customization. Most likely, these applications are not ‘cluster aware’ – meaning they do not take advantage of cluster APIs within the OS to make themselves highly available when installed

in a clustered environment. VERITAS Cluster Server does not require applications to be ‘cluster aware’, or that they even have been designed with clustering in mind. As a general rule, if an application can recover from a power outage without a significant amount of manual intervention, it can be made highly available with VCS.

MYTH Applications must be “cluster-aware” to be used in a cluster.

CUSTOM AGENTS Included with VERITAS Cluster Server is an Agent Developer’s Guide. This manual describes the best practices of custom agent development and provides example-led instructions for customers who need to tailor the functionality of VCS to suit their own purposes. VERITAS Enterprise Consulting Services are available to perform agent development, provide consultation, or cater an entire deployment to a custom configuration. MULTI-TIER APPLICATION SUPPORT Some applications are built in a multi-tiered or distributed fashion, such as a web application which runs on a front-end server that is dependant on a database running on a back-end server. In a cluster, this means the web application must only come online after the database has come online. This type of dependency requires a sophisticated form of agent architecture that is only found in enterprise level cluster solutions. VERITAS Cluster Server provides this support through Service Group dependencies – a feature that allows multiple layers of dependencies to be created between applications in a cluster. FILE & PRINT SERVERS Managing a wide deployment of File and Print servers can be a daunting task for any administrator. Customers have implemented VERITAS Cluster Server specifically for the advantages delivered when managing large File and Print server environments. With thousands of fileshares and hundreds of printshares, it’s important to have a solution that not only scales to support these resource-intensive workloads, but has a management framework that is built to handle large configurations. Many tunable features, such as mount point support, auto-sharing of subdirectories, hidden shares, and Volume Manager with Volume Replicator integration make network file and print serving a powerful component of a Windows cluster. MYTH: Microsoft applications are not supported in a VERITAS cluster server environment.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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TECHNICAL SUPPORT ALLIANCE NETWORK (TSANET) SUPPORT AGREEMENT VERTAS recognizes that technical support is a key factor in the decision making process when evaluating third party solutions. For this reason, establishing a joint support agreement between both Microsoft and VERITAS was a top priority for the Cluster Server team. Through the

Technical Support Alliance Network (TSANet) agreement, a contractual obligation exists for each company to respond to customer escalations within hours, not days. Customers are not redirected when issues arise involving a combination of VERITAS products with Microsoft applications. A dedicated channel exists between back-line support groups from each company to facilitate communication, which allows the vendors to work on the problem together while providing a single interface to the customer.

MYTH Microsoft applications are not supported in a VERITAS cluster server environment.

Microsoft has documented a full statement of support:

“Microsoft recognizes VERITAS Software as member in good standing of TSANet, and as such will support VERITAS staff resolving customer’s technical issues involving VERITAS software running on a Microsoft platform, or interacting with a Microsoft application.”

(*full document can be provided on request)

VERITAS ENABLED The VERITAS Enabled program is a comprehensive set of services that provides access to VERITAS APIs, self-qualification tools, development support, product roadmaps and joint marketing. As part of this program, VERITAS Cluster Server provides a ‘Storage Certification Suite’ to external hardware vendors, which allows qualification of configurations not tested in the VERITAS lab to achieve a form of self-certification with the VERITAS product stack.

TRUE ENTERPRISE DATA CENTER SOLUTION VCS is equipped to handle even the most challenging data center requirements. These features provide the VCS with the capabilities necessary to meet the needs of complex customer environments. INTER/INTRA-DOMAIN FAILOVER Intel-based servers are now beginning to scale to the capacity of comparable high-end UNIX servers. Companies such as Unisys sell hardware, which supports mainframe-like partitioning in configurations of up to 32 processors per machine. These large servers often provide the capability to separate their processor and memory capacity into segregated partitions or domains. VERITAS Cluster Server has the ability to provide failover for applications between domains in a server, and in the event consecutive failures occur, applications can be moved to a completely different server. CROSS-PLATFORM SUPPORT While a fully homogeneous data center may be the goal in some environments, it’s common for an existing infrastructure to consist of Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, or AIX, with a deployment of Linux on

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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the way. If heterogeneity isn’t already there, it may be only an acquisition away. Open systems solutions such as VERITAS Cluster Server eliminate the need for cross-training staff on new technologies for every operating system and platform. Management of operations can be consolidated rather than using a different interface at each layer of the data center. Best practices can be defined once, and used throughout an enterprise. These benefits reduce the overall cost of managing and maintaining availability. FULL SOLUTION STACK Designing for high availability in a Windows data center involves more than just a simple cluster implementation. While Microsoft may provide a single piece of what is required for application availability, additional layers are still necessary to keep a data center fully protected from disaster. VERITAS provides an end-to-end solution, eliminating the need to mix products from different vendors. This solution stack begins with a solid backup plan using VERITAS NetBackup or Backup Exec, followed by hosting data sets on RAID volumes for fault tolerance using VERITAS Volume Manager, clustering for application availability with VERITAS Cluster Server, replication for wide area disaster recovery using VERITAS Volume Replicator, and multi-cluster management for site-migration using VERITAS Global Cluster Manager. Each time VERITAS releases a product, it has been tested using the full solution stack to ensure compatibility. VOLUME MANAGER The Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system offers significant advances in performance, scalability, and manageability. One of the key features of this new operating system is the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) that provides logical volume management and online disk administration capabilities. VERITAS Volume Manager™ for Windows 2000 (VM) extends these in-the-box basic capabilities to create a highly scalable, manageable platform for the most data-intensive or critical application environments. By combining VERITAS Volume Manager and Cluster Server, system administrators can create flexible storage configurations that allow clusters to be created using local storage devices on each system rather than a single shared storage array. This integrated solution provides customers with both highly available application failover support and highly configurable and manageable storage capabilities. VOLUME REPLICATOR Even with the most well executed backup strategy, restoring data from tape usually results in several hours of lost data. For many environments, this kind of data loss is unacceptable and real-time replication is a requirement. Real time replication not only minimizes or eliminates data loss, but also enables rapid recovery when compared to conventional bulk data transfer from sequential media. VERITAS Volume Replicator works as a fully integrated module within VERITAS Volume Manager, the industry-leading, highly popular online data storage management solution used in more than 1000,000 enterprises worldwide. Replication, in the context of disaster recovery, is an automated and rules-based method for the geographical distribution of identical data. This reduces the opportunity for human error and minimizes the need for administrator intervention. Replication should make efficient use of resources and, after an initial synchronization, keep WAN network traffic down by replication only the data blocks which actually change.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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GLOBAL CLUSTER MANAGER VERITAS Global Cluster Manager allows IT staff to manage geographically distributed data and application availability from a web-based console. Administrators can view and manage from a single location their distributed clusters built on VERITAS Cluster Server. This management framework reduces administrative overhead for any organization with two or more server clusters. The Global Cluster Manager Disaster Recovery Option is an add-on product that integrates clustering and replication technologies to minimize planned and unplanned downtime. The Disaster Recovery Option directs data replication to remote sites, allowing for site and or application migration. By combining cluster failover with replication, Global Cluster Manager offers the ultimate in disaster recovery management for businesses who cannot afford data loss and prolonged downtime. Administrators can manage disaster recovery sites for Windows and UNIX regardless of hardware platform or location. CONCLUSION Application downtime costs customers money in lost productivity, operational costs, and recovery time. Customers who deploy cluster solutions do so because their applications are considered critical to the overall success of their business. When investing in such a critical component, the choice between relying on a ‘free’ cluster solution and what VERITAS offers is clear. As a leader in storage virtualization, data protection and high availability, VERITAS software, with its portfolio of solutions that manage and protect critical data in the most demanding IT environments, is a natural choice to meet your high availability and disaster recovery requirements. VERITAS offers hardware-independent software solutions, which include backup and recovery, replication and remote mirroring, and clustering, allowing you to leverage existing hardware within your data center. No other vendor provides as much flexibility of OS and application support, scalability for local and wide area recovery, ease of management, or reliability for your most critical data. These features combined with the flexibility of architecting large clusters, provide increased total cost of ownership and future value for the business. Trust high availability and disaster recovery to the market leader – VERITAS Software.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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APPENDIX A RETURN ON INVESTMENT – THE VALUE OF LARGER CLUSTERS

Considerations to implementing many small clusters:

• Manageability headache • Second node vulnerable to

failure if maintenance is performed on first node

• Least flexible – only one failover target

• Expensive/redundant hardware

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For additional information about VERITAS Software, its products, or the location of an office near you, please call our corporate headquarters or visit our Web site at www.veritas.com.

Copyright 2002 VERITAS Software Corporation. All rights reserved. VERITAS, VERITAS Software, the VERITAS logo, and all other VERITAS product names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of VERITAS Software Corporation in the US and/or other countries. Other product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications and product offerings subject to change without notice. June 2002.

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