Domain DFS with shared VMDK for dfs root

[stexlollo]

Hello my situation:

2 esx 3.5 nodes with cluster HA enabled on Equallogic p100 volumes

3 vm for cluster node

all vm are win 2003 sp1 or R2 Enterprise editions

2 domain controller with single domain (2003 R2 ent. edit.) that i wanted use as file servers too: AD1 (fsmo),AD2

my files are profiles,documents and common office doc.All users in the same site and domain can access to these two file server- domain controller with

my question is

how can i create reduntants situation with DFS domain namespace in my 2 dc for my clients?

i know that if i mount volume d:\shared1 ,d:\shared2 in my ad1 with microsoft iscsi iniziator in the vm or as a VMDK disk and i use that volume for my dfs data root, if my ad1 go down or is disconnetted, clients can't access dfs root because, yes AD2 is up, but my data are only in AD1.So my clients can't access to

can be a solution mount a SHARED vmdk virtual disk in both AD1 and AD2 and use tha vmdk as dfs root domain namespace and link targets?

i'll have corrupted files in that shared ntfs volume or i have redundancy for my clients because only one of my name space servers at a time, hadles traffic read write from all clients to that ntfs partition (vmdk shared virtual disk)?

a full dfs replication between AD1 and AD2 can be a solution (without shared vmdk) but i'll need double space for the second vmdk mounted drive in my second server, i think.

Thank for suggestions and for other solution.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

If you are going to use a shared VMDK then you should follow the guidelines within the MSCS guide from VMware. http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/vi3_35_25_u1_mscs.pdf

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[kjb007]

You can't use the same disk in two different servers without using clustering software. As you said, if you create a domain DFS root, the namespace will exist in the domain, but your shares only live on one server. You can replicate as well, but you will need double the space. With 3.5, there is experimental support for Virtual Machine HA, so if your vm fails heartbeats for a certain amount of time, ESX will restart it. Again, this is in experimental mode, and should not be used for production.

What you can do is run 2 VMs in a microsoft cluster and run file share and dfs root resources on that cluster, instead of using domain-based DFS.

Otherwise, you can create a cluster with your domain controllers, and run DFS root and file share resource on that. I've never done that before, and can't say for sure it will work, but the previous should work just fine.

-KjB

[stexlollo]

thanks.

i do not think that i can cluster 2 domain controller with mscs.i know that i can use a stand alone dfs in a clusterd files server.

So or i use frs replication between to domain controller - file server or i use only a single 1 volume in one of two domain controller with dfs domain space.

thanks...

[Rumple]

Why exactly are you running file services on your domain controllers when you have a virtual environment that allows you to create multiple VM's on the same hardware.

The only time you should be running anything on your domain controllers is when you are stuck with a single piece of hardware.

DFS does not have to run on the domain controllers. A seperate file server joined to the domain can run Enterprise DFS and will have replication capabilities using FRS for Windows 2003 and another file replication type for window 2003 R2 and Windows 2008.

[stexlollo]

Well sorry for my english....

Well i think you are forgetting in particular the license question.We are a very small business with 50-70 users and we have a Microsoft topology client server, with 8 servers vm.

Windows 2003 R2 Enterpise edition permits 4 internal vm license with 2003 r2 ed os (and 1 external license if you install Microsoft Virtual os and not esx), but this does not mean that in a virtual environment, you can mount all vm that you want,one vm for a service, like microsoft wants, also for hardware and san space resources, i think.Microsoft license 2003 ed r2 is not free, anyway.

More vms in a esx node mean more workload in that esx node, and more space for vmdk system files and license os, in my opinion.we do not use linux server, actually.

I read Tech Microsoft and they not esclude dfsroot installation in a domain controller (sure not in the system volume partition), in particular with a domain namespace and not a stand alone name space that prefers a cluster file server for redundancy.

So that was my question about dfs domain space redundancy.

Anyway we start with a single dfsroot volume in one dc.dfsr will help us to mirror that dfsroot in another dc or member serve when budget does not block us.

thanks.

[jhanekom]

Just some clarification... you can still use MSCS on a domain controller. Best practice says it's not always a good idea, but it is supported.

Thing is, you don't cluster the entire server - you cluster specific "resources". A resource can be a shared disk, IP address, network name, file share, service, etc. So it's quite possible to cluster a file share over two domain controllers.

As suggested in an earlier post, read the MSCS guide, and also do a bit of reading on the Microsoft web site about the way MSCS works for more specifics on how to set it up. Maybe mess around with two lab VMs first before trying it on your production systems.

[stexlollo]

ok thanks.

Lorenzo Anselmo

Supporto Informatico

Email: lorenzo.anselmo@sclock.com

www.officinadeltempo.com

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