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Server Cluster Resources and Resource Groups

Types of Server Cluster Resources

Windows Server 2003 supports a variety of cluster resources. They include the following:

• DHCP. DHCP resource manages the DHCP service, which can be used in a cluster to assure availability to client computers. The DHCP database must reside on the shared cluster storage device, known as the quorum disk.

• File Share. Shares on servers can be made redundant and fault-tolerant aside from using the DFS (Distributed File System) service by using the File Share resource inside a cluster.

• Generic Application. Applications that are not cluster-aware can be managed within a cluster using the Generic Application resource.

• Generic Script. Generic Script resource type is used to manage operating system scripts.

• Generic Service. Windows Server 2003 core services, can be made highly available by using the Generic Service resource type.

• IP Address. The IP Address resource manages a static, dedicated IP address assigned to a cluster.

• Network Name. The Network Name resource represents the shared DNS or NetBIOS name of the cluster, an application, or a virtual server contained within the cluster.

• Physical Disk. Physical Disk resources manage storage devices that are shared to all cluster members. The drive letter assigned to the physical device is the same on all cluster nodes. The Physical Disk Resource is required by default for all cluster types except the Majority Node Set.

• Print Spooler. Print services can be clustered using the Print Spooler resource.

• WINS. The WINS resource type is associated with the Windows Internet Naming Service, which is used to resolve NetBIOS names to IP addresses.

Server Cluster Resource Groups

A resource group is a unit of failover. Resources that are related or dependent on each other are grouped using resource groups. All resources which are grouped together using a resource group must be from the same node. If any of the resources in a resource group fails, all the resources fail over togethe. When the cause of a failure is resolved, the group fails back to the server where it was running before failover.

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