Hello fellow IT enthusiasts, my name is Aeval Shah and I am a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) for Microsoft Premier Support. My specialist area is clustering and as part of the Ramp Up Guide series I thought I would put together some information to help you gain some deeper knowledge into the features and capabilities of Windows 2008 R2 Failover Clustering.
I was proficient with clustering in Windows 2003, however, I did not know in-depth the new features and architecture of Windows 2008 R2 Failover Clustering . Below is a list of links that I have used to increase my knowledge in this area and feel it would benefit anyone who wants to learn more about Failover Clustering.
I have grouped the links into several sections to make it easier to find the relevant information. During my own ramp up I used the links below and found them to be invaluable. I did not want to provide too much information as that would probably be information overload. I wanted to keep the information relevant for a ramp up guide, however, the articles below do provide further links to additional information.
It is always a good idea to read the white papers for a technology as they give you a good overview of the product/feature. You can always deeper when you have a good grounding.
A good foundation into the technology will help you develop further as you dive deeper into specific areas. Although not essential it is nice to know what was released and with what version.
These particular guides are very well written as they walk you through various scenarios end to end. They start off with the basics and then focus on specific tasks.
This tool is extremely useful in a test environment/lab. The guides here show you how to install and configure the tool so you can build your own test cluster which you can then use to ramp up further.
This lists contain deep dive information into specific parts of Failover Clustering. They focus on one given aspect of the technology and provide detailed information.
Whist I knew a little bit about PowerShell at the operating system level I did not know that there were so many cmdlets specific for clustering. These links helped me understand the cmdlets as well as helped me transition my Cluster.exe knowledge to PowerShell. As Cluster.exe will be deprecated in later versions of Failover Clustering is the right time to get your hands dirty and try out the cmdlets.
A vast improvement in Windows 2008 R2 Failover Clustering is the support for multi-site clustering. This technology will definitely be used many companies and it is definitely worth knowing well.
Blogs and webcasts a very useful way of learning specific information. If like me you are a visual learner you will enjoy the webcasts as they provide some in depth knowledge in the specific areas.
I hope the information provided here proves to be useful and helps you on your way to becoming a cluster expert.
Aeval Shah
Premier Field Engineer
nice overview of information
Hi Aeval! Hope you are well. The link to What is a Microsoft Failover Cluster Virtual Adapter? is 404ing. I'm assuming it's supposed to be this page: blogs.technet.com/.../what-is-a-microsoft-failover-cluster-virtual-adapter-anyway.aspx