|
What the IT Manager Should Know
Windows
2000® Advanced Server®
5.d. Rolling Upgrades & Reliability
Cluster
service is ideally suited for ensuring transparent
upgrades of applications without interrupting
your clients. As mentioned above, administrators
can easily take a server offline for maintenance.
This lets them perform "rolling upgrades"
of system and application software. By migrating
applications to one node, upgrading the first
node, and then migrating them back to their preferred
node, administrators can roll out hardware, software,
and even operating systems upgrades with minimal
user impact.
There are two
major advantages to a rolling upgrade. First,
service outages are very short during the upgrade
process. Second, you do not have to recreate your
cluster configuration. The configuration will
remain intact during the upgrade process. Cluster
Service in Windows 2000 supports rolling operating
system upgrades from Windows NT Server 4.0 and
Enterprise Edition clusters deployed with Service
Pack 4 or higher.
Cluster Service is supported by dozens of
cluster-aware applications spanning a wide range
of functions and vendors. Cluster-aware applications
include databases, such as Microsoft SQL Server
7.0, SQL Server 2000, and IBM DB2; messaging servers,
such as Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5, Exchange
2000 Server, and Lotus Domino; management tools
like NetIQ’s AppManager; disaster recovery tools
like NSI Software’s DoubleTake 3.0; and ERP applications,
including SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards.
And you can now cluster such services as DHCP,
WINS, SMTP, and NNTP.
< Back
|
