Chapter 22. Creating a Fault-Tolerant Environment

In this Chapter

Optimizing Disk Management for Fault Tolerance

Maximizing Redundancy and Flexibility with Distributed File System

Simplifying Fault Tolerance with Volume Shadow Copy

Optimizing Disk Utilization with Remote Storage

Optimizing Clusters to Simplify Administrative Overhead

Leveraging Network Load Balancing for Improved Availability

Realizing Rapid Recovery Using Automated System Recovery (ASR)

BEST PRACTICES

Setting Up DFS

DFS Replication

Using Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)

Using Remote Storage

Configuring Clusters

Network Load Balancing

Because more and more businesses rely on constant and uninterrupted access to their IT network resources, many technologies have been created to help ensure continuous uptime of servers and applications. Windows Server 2003 is inline with these new technologies to meet the demands of the modern business model that seeks to provide a fault-tolerant network environment where unexpected downtime is a thing of the past. By combining Windows Server 2003 technologies with the appropriate hardware and general best practices, IT organizations can realize both file-level and system-level fault tolerance to maintain a high level of availability for their business-critical applications and network services.

This chapter highlights the features available in Windows Server 2003 that target fault tolerance and provides best practices for their implementation of and application to the IT environment. On the file-system side, in addition to proper disk management and antivirus protection, Windows Server 2003 provides Distributed File System (DFS), Volume Shadow Copy (VSC), and Remote Storage technologies. Related to system-level fault tolerance, Windows Server 2003 includes the Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) and Network Load Balancing (NLB) technologies to provide redundancy and failover capabilities.