Clustering is a difficult thing to learn for most people, not due to any inherent difficulty in implementing a cluster, but for the lack of hardware that most people have access too. How many people do you know with access to multiple servers and shared storage devices that can be used to build a cluster? Virtual Server to the rescue!

Yes that is right, you can configure a 2 node cluster using Virtual Server 2005. Let's first look at configuring the virtual machines and get to configuring the cluster later. You will require 3 virtual machines for this demo - DC1 - Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition Domain Controller - Node1 - Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition - Node2 - Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Note: You can build clusters with Windows 2000 Advanced Server as well. Before we start building these virtual machines we need to configure a few things in Virtual Server 2005 first. The first of these is the configuration of a virtual network for the cluster nodes. Open up the Virtual Server Administration web page and click on Create under Virtual Networks. Create a new virtual network called ClusterNet and set the network adapter to None (Guests Only).

Next we need to create a virtual hard disk to be used as the Cluster Quorum disk. The Quorum is used to store the clusters configuration database checkpoints, log files and to help maintain consistency. Click on Create under Virtual Hard Disks and create a Fixed Size Virtual Hard Disk that is 1GB in size.

Finally create a virtual machine and install Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition and promote it to a Domain Controller. Use 172.16.1.10 255.255.255.0 as the IP address. With that out of the way, create two more virtual machines with the following configuration. Severnames: Node1 and Node 2 Virtual SCSI Controller: SCSI ID 7 (default) Network Adapter 1: Internal Network Network Adapter 2: ClusterNet Hard Disk 1: 16GB Dynamicly Expanding VHD on IDE Primary 0 When adding the Virtual SCSI Adapter, check the box next to Share SCSI Bus For Clustering.

You can view the details of the configuration here.

Node1

Node2

Install Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition on Node1 and Node2. When the OS is installed configure the network cards as follows Node1: Internal Network 172.16.1.100 255.255.255.0 ClusterNet 10.0.0.100 255.255.255.0 Node2: Internal Network 172.16.1.200 255.255.255.0 ClusterNet 10.0.0.200 255.255.255.0 Use 172.16.1.10 as the DNS IP for the Internal Network (it should be the IP you set for the DC) and then disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP. Finally join Node1 and Node 2 to the domain.

The last step before beginning the cluster configuration is two create a domain account called Cluster Service with a strong password that is set to never expire. So now we have 3 virtual machines running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, all part of a Windows 2003 domain with a private network called ClusterNet between Node1 and Node2. Next comes the configuration of the Qorum disk and the cluster.