Windows Server

Jason Gilbert · Guest

Hi,

I'm working on the design for a system which will be comprised of two
Windows 2003 machines (A and B) in a hot live/standby configuration. Each
machine will run an instance of my application. The application reads in user
supplied configuration file (the same file is required by the A and B
systems). As far as the user is concerned, there is one application (the fact
that there are two servers in a hot live/standby config is irrelevant to the
user).
I'd like the user to see 1 network drive onto which they place the
configuration file. I'd like the application on both the A and B systems to
both monitor for a change in this file and process any updates at runtime.
But, whilst I want a single network drive / file mechanism, it needs to be
resilient to failure. IE: If the A system fails the B system can still see
the drive and vice-versa. In effect I want to create a virtual drive which
spans the A and B system and which is self replicating and resilient to the
loss of a single machine.

Before I delve too deeply into Active Directory, DFS / FRS can anyone tell
me if they have implemented anything similar and whether these technologies
offer the kind of thing that I need.

Many Thanks,
Jason

Paul Williams [MVP] · Guest

This is possible to do with FRS in as much as you can configure a link to
replicate and you can disable referrals to the standby server. However,
enabling referrals is going to be a manual process unless you can script the
switch and add that to your failover process.

If you have a high-availability solution you might be better off having a
clustered file share (assuming clustering), or adding to file share to the
scope of replication if using a replicating solution or something like
NeverFail.

--
Paul Williams
Microsoft MVP - Windows Server - Directory Services
http://www.msresource.net | http://forums.msresource.net

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