Requirements and Planning

Before you attempt to implement any form of clustering, you need to clearly understand the business reason for doing so. You also need to be aware of the costs and benefits of the implementation as well as the resource requirements for a successful implementation. Treat the implementation of a Windows 2000 cluster as you would any other major project. Clearly state the business case for the cluster, and get a commitment from all levels before you expend substantial resources on the project.

Identifying and Addressing Goals

The first step in planning your cluster is to identify your goals for the implementation and the needs that using clusters will meet. This sounds obvious, but it is actually the part of the process that is most often overlooked. The implementation of any technology should always be first and foremost a business decision, not a technology decision. Creating and maintaining clusters is not a trivial task, and it requires both technological and financial resources. You'll have a hard time selling your project if you haven't clearly identified one or more needs that it will meet.

In identifying the needs to be met and the goals of your project, you need to be as objective as possible. Always keep in mind that what you might view as "cool" technology can look remarkably like scary, unproven gobbledygook to those in the organization who are less technically savvy than you are. This doesn't mean that those individuals won't support your project, but it does mean that you need to make the case for the project on a level that they can understand and identify with.

Start by clearly identifying the business goals that you're trying to accomplish. State the general goals, but provide enough detail to make the success of the project clearly measurable. Identify the specific gains you expect and how those gains will be measured. Be sure to clearly indicate how the needs you've identified are currently being met. This step is critical because it lets you point out both the costs of your suggested method and the risks associated with it.

Identifying a Solution

Once you know the business needs you're trying to meet, you can identify some solutions. If you've clearly laid out your goals and objectives for the project, the technology that achieves those goals will be driven by those needs, not the other way around. This is also the time to use your best political judgment. You need to identify not only the best way to meet the business needs, but also how much you can realistically sell and implement in a single shot. If you think that ultimately you will need a fully integrated, three-tiered, multiple-cluster solution, you might want to build your plan around a phased approach that allows you to distribute the risks and costs over a broader period.

In addition, if you're proposing a clustering solution to the problem, spend some time and energy identifying methodologies that might be considered alternatives to clustering and clearly laying out the strengths and weaknesses of those alternatives. This effort will short-circuit objections and diversions as you build support for your project.

Identifying and Addressing Risks

As you plan your schedule, be sure to identify the risks at each step of the process and plan solid fallback positions if problems arise. Selling the project is also much easier if it's clear that you've actually thought about the risks. For example, if your goal is to replace an existing manual methodology, have you left yourself a way to fall back to it if there are problems? Or are the two mutually incompatible? If you're replacing an existing client/server application with a clustered, Web-based, distributed, n-tiered application, have you made a clear roadmap for how you will make the transition from one to the other? What are the risks of that transition?

Spend some time identifying failure points in your project. If you're building a server cluster to provide 24-hour, 7-day access to your Microsoft Exchange messaging, have you identified redundant network connections to the cluster? It does little good to create a highly available server if the network connection to it is questionable.

Making Checklists

Take the time to identify all the possible pieces of your cluster implementation ahead of time. Use this to build a checklist of steps that you need to take and the dependencies at each point. At each major step, identify the hardware, software, knowledge, and resources required, and create a checklist of the prerequisites for that step. The time you spend planning your clustering implementation will easily be saved in the actual installation and implementation, and greatly reduces your risks of failure.



Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Administrator's Companion
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server Administrators Companion
ISBN: 0735617856
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 320

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net