Gregory Pfister's excellent book, In Search of Clusters, has a picture of fighting
dogs on the
cover. I always thought it was a fitting image for a challenging technology
that has perplexed so many for so long. But, if you were going to write a book
about clusters in Microsoft's
Windows 2008, you might use Edward Hicks' The Peaceable
Kingdom as cover art.
Failover Clustering from Micrososft is the latest High Availability (HA)
technology in their server technology portfolio and brings clustering to
customers that previously couldn't afford it. The big change is due to an
integrated cluster validation tool that assures systems are cluster-ready. Dell
takes up it's part of the equation by providing tested, pre-validated
configurations that make cluster setup and configuration a straightforward,
step-wise process. The beauty is that customers can deploy clusters now without
having to know the details of how clusters work.
Listen to a Jeff
Johnson interview with people from Dell's
HA engineering team talk about this important technology.