No Clustering
Articles and Tips: qna
01 Nov 2001
Q.
Is it possible to have a NetWare 5.x SYS volume on a Storage Area Network (SAN)? I am asking this because if the box that runs the NetWare 5.x server crashes, can you just connect another box to the SAN and run the NetWare 5.1 server from that box? There is no Novell Clustering Services considered in this configuration.
Can't Cluster in Cuxhaven
A.
Dear Can't Cluster: The answer is YES with Xiotech, EMC, IBM Shark and QLogic adapters. We have our Dell 2450's set up to boot off the SAN. Basically all you have to do is set up the fiber channel cards to load their BIOS during post. We've even gone so far as to completely disable the local disk subsystem on the servers in our rack.
On the Xiotech-based servers, you can set up a partition that is private to the particular server adapter. Set it up as LUN #0, and the server should have no problems booting off of it just as it would a SCSI device. Using this technique, we have bootable configurations on our SAN of 3 NetWare 6 boxes clustered, or we can reconfigure to two NetWare 6 boxes and a Windows 2000 box (completely different installs, so no NDS complaints) just by making a quick configuration change on the Xiotech.
I can change what servers in the rack boot off which partitions just by using the management utilities that Xiotech has on their box to "bind" a partition to a particular hardware device.
* Originally published in Novell AppNotes
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