Storegrid Cluster

[pbi]

I want to bring in a new backup server, so it makes sense to enable clustering.

What I would like to know is:

1 - Can I use different OS's for each cluster node? The main server is Win2003 and I'd like to move to 2008 with the new one.

2 - How hard is it to move a customer or client from one cluster machine to another?

3 - To confirm, each node in the cluster needs its own external IP address?

4 - Any word on whether load balanced configuration is coming soon?

[vidhya]

Hi,

1. Yes, you can use two machines in a cluster with different versions of Windows. As long as they are all on Windows, you are fine. You cannot add a Linux machine with a Windows machine in a cluster - mainly because the storage locations are shared by the nodes and therefore the same path has to be recognizable from the different nodes.

2. It is not supported through the web console but if you can contact support on it, they should be able to move the customers to new node.

3. Yes, each node has to have a separate external IP or if you dont have that, you can have the different machines in the cluster listen on different ports for backups (like machine A could be running on port 32004, machine B on port 42004, machine c on 52004 so on) and then have the NAT/router to port forward the requests coming on a common IP/hostname of the cluster to the appropriate machine based on the port at which the requests are coming in.

4. round robin should be available in the next two to three weeks as a patch over v4.2. Please check back with support on it after a few weeks.

Regards
Vidhya