Anycast and windows servers

Fri Feb 20 17:18:37 UTC 2004

Depending on the service being provided, Microsoft
has their own clustering solution which will
perform failover.  Sometimes choosing full vendor
supported technologies is the easiest path.
With Windows 2003 Server they even support
geographically disperses failover.  Info at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/technologies/clustering/default.asp

Gary

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel Senie [mailto:dts at senie.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 6:39 AM
> To: Sean Donelan
> Cc: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Re: Anycast and windows servers
> 
> 
> 
> At 05:43 AM 2/20/2004, you wrote:
> 
> >On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Patrick W.Gilmore wrote:
> > > Honestly, I do not know about OSPF (or BGP) on Windows, 
> however, you
> > > can just static route to the Windows box(es).  Sure, if 
> the OS hangs,
> > > the interface will stay up and the static route will 
> still push bits at
> > > the dead box, but it will work (FSVO "work").
> > >
> > > Besides, how often does Windows crash? <snicker>
> >
> >Hence the reason why I want the route to cease being 
> advertised if the box
> >"fails."
> 
> Connect the server(s) to APC MasterSwitch or equivalent 
> hardware. Monitor 
> the server box(es) for responsiveness. If/when it fails, the 
> monitoring 
> station can instruct the MasterSwitch to reboot (power cycle, 
> really) the 
> box. Stuff is pretty inexpensive (certainly less so than load 
> balancers).
> 
> 
> >I'm trying to avoid putting yet another server load balancer 
> box in front
> >of the windows box to withdraw the route so a different 
> "working" box will
> >be closest.  It may be an oxymoron, but I'm trying to make 
> the windows
> >service (if not a particular windows box) as "reliable" as possible
> >without introducing more boxes than necessary.
> 
> My initial thought last night was in fact the use of load 
> balancers. But 
> then you need to think about redundant load balancers and so on. 
> 