Clusters for Service Consolidation

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Darryl Darling

Using Microsoft Cluster Services to Consolidate Your Infrastructure

As I mentioned in a previous post, Failover Clustering Overview | Windows Server 2008 R2, the idea of using Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS) to host multiple services seemed quite viable as HA solution. For many companies that use Microsoft server products as the foundation of their infrastructure, there could be great benefit in consolidating their services into clusters. The benefits could include ease of upgrade and patching using the rolling upgrade method, as well as ability to scale the solution as the business grows. Services such as DHCP, Exchange, SQL Server, and File Services could be consolidated into one or multiple clusters. Architected with disaster recovery in mind, services could be failed over to a cluster in another site. That could help to knock out two problems with one solution. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, please review this TechNet article – How A Cluster Server Works. The article is a little dated but the information is so good that I had to add it to the mix. Please let me know what you think, and if you have any questions. I would be happy to share my thoughts.

How A Cluster Server Works

TQM – Total Quality Management Resources | ASQ

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Darryl Darling

Continuous Improvement with Total Quality Management (TQM)

Our Business Process and Goals Strategizing service is designed to assist you with looking at your company from a long term perspective. If you desire your company to continue past your ability to manage it, what strategies will you put in place to ensure that happens. More importantly, how will you realize the impact your company has in the market. These are the issues that, when resolved or approached, can open doors to new understanding with respect to your business.

There isn’t much talk about Business Process and Goal Strategizing when it comes to IT. However, recently I was doing some research in this area and found that there’s not much on the internet as well. Maybe I wasn’t using the proper search phrases, but it was difficult to find what I was looking for. I was finally able to find some relevant content that I thought quite interesting. Please review the ASQ.org site. There’s some great articles and publications as well.

TQM – Total Quality Management Resources | ASQ.

Failover Clustering Overview | Windows Server 2008 R2

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Darryl Darling

Late last year, I began working on a migration project to move a single Windows Sever file service to a two node failover cluster using Windows Server 2008 R2. The configuration was implemented in a VMware vShpere 4.1 tenant datacenter. I was not able to use Windows Server 2012 because vSphere 4.1 doesn’t support it. It has been a few months since the completion of the project, and I have had some time to reflect on the outcome.

The project was very successful. VMware provides a cluster setup document that was not overly complicated to follow. I was even able to integrate our existing Tivoli Storage Manager backup client into the solution with great ease. Now that the project is complete, I am envisioning how clusters might be scaled to simplify the management of an entire environment. Consider using Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS) to power all of your higher level services, such as DHCP, File and Print, SQL Server, Exchange Server, DFS and other cluster aware applications. Could it be possible to setup say a ten node cluster to support all of your important business and LAN services? Of course, if you needed more servers, adding additional ones would not be impossible.

In the coming weeks I would like to investigate this possibility. First to determine if it’s feasible, and second, is it practical. It’s an exciting opportunity from my perspective, and I hope some of you might think so as well.

Failover Clustering Overview

What’s New in Failover Clusters in Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) support on ESXi/ESX (1004617)

Severalnines – Configurator for MySQL Cluster

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Darryl Darling

For the past few months I have been working with the MySQL Cluster product. I have to admit, it’s not an easy hill to climb. When I initially started working to setup a cluster, I associated it with many of the other clustered solutions I had worked with. However, there were some basic differences that I had to get used to. MySQL Cluster doesn’t use shared storage and it’s designed based on three separate node types. Each of which, could run on a single server. I had to get used to that. Once I began to understand those two basic concepts, things went much better. It’s easy to get a cluster of two separate servers up and running, but then comes special considerations for your specific data needs. I was trying to import a database from a single MySQL instance into the new cluster. The definite key word here is “trying”. As a result of searching on the Internet for all the different errors I encountered, I found a company call Severalnines. This company is awesome when it comes to MySQL. They provide a site they call a “Configurator”. By using this site, I was able to get so much closer to the goal. I recommend checking this company out, but definitely check out the configurator site if you’re just starting to work with MySQL Cluster. You’ll save a lot of time.

Severalnines – Configurator for MySQL Cluster.

Information Technology Education

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Darryl Darling

IT Education: Increase Your Knowledge and Understanding

The Information Technology (IT) field is an arena of constantly changing concepts. Many of which are manifested in the form of products and services that, for some, are easy to understand and work with. However, for many others, just the phrase IT represents complete confusion. Our Technology Education service provides clarity to IT as a whole, but more importantly, exposes how your business goals can be reached through some form of technology implementation. A great resource for learning more about the IT field and its various disciplines, is the National Institute of Standards and Technology or NIST for short. Their Information Technology Portal is an excellent resource for acquiring a wealth of knowledge about the latest trends in the field. Take the opportunity to review what they have to offer.

High-Availability guidelines and VMware HA best practices

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Darryl Darling

Guidelines and Best Practices for HA

There are many ways to provide high availability with any particular solution. At Paraklesys, we work with many different types of solutions that provide reliability and high availability. This article written by Elias Khnaser at SearchDisasterRecovery, is a very well written informational on this subject. It has some very interesting information on VMware vSphere that is still very pertinent.

High-availability guidelines and VMware HA best practices.

“Bring Your Own Device” — Importance of Defining Business Objectives – Forbes

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Darryl Darling

Defining Your Company’s BYOD Objectives

What is all this discussion about bring your own device (BYOD)? What exactly is it anyway? WhatIs.com has a great definition for BYOD. At first I was surprised at the fullness of the term. I always considered it a term associated with only smartphones. However, there is much more to it than that. John Herrema contributed a two part series that I think presents a well rounded approach for decision makers.

“Bring Your Own Device” — Importance of Defining Business Objectives – Forbes.

The new BPM program: A focus on data-driven business outcomes

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Darryl Darling

Business Process Management (BPM)

With so much changing in the business environment, especially from a budget perspective, getting things done has become more of a challenge than ever. Introducing a Business Process Management (BPM) program can make the difference between success and failure. Christina Torode, Editorial Director at SearchCIO, writes a very useful article for today’s CIOs.

The new BPM program: A focus on data-driven business outcomes.

What is NoSQL? | Planet Cassandra