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Conference decwet::winnt-clusters

Title:	WinNT-Clusters
Notice:	Info directories moved to DECWET::SHARE1$:[NT_CLSTR]
Moderator:	DECWET::CAPPELLOF

Created:	Thu Oct 19 1995
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	863
Total number of notes:	3478

676.0. "Is tehre a limit on number of partitions ?" by ULYSSE::STRATMAN (Peter Stratman @VBO) Thu Mar 06 1997 12:22

    Hi,

    Two questions:
    
    1) Is a dual RA310 configuration cluster supported (Not dual pedestal but
    2 separate RA310s) ?

    2) Can NT Clusters handle 16 partitions ? (8 on a RAID5 set on each
    RA310)?

    Thanks,
    Peter.

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
676.1		MSE1::PCOTE	Just say yes to 'thin clients'	`Thu Mar 06 1997 14:48`	31
	> 1) Is a dual RA310 configuration cluster supported (Not dual pedestal but > 2 separate RA310s) ? Yes, but if you configured both ra310 on the same SCSI bus then you must configured each RA310 with unique SCSI IDs. Raid Manager or SWCC provides 4 host SCSI IDs per hsz. So the maximum number of HSZs per bus is 4. (Though more than 2 is not recommended due to I/O performance reasons) > 2) Can NT Clusters handle 16 partitions ? (8 on a RAID5 set on each > RA310)? NT clusters does not impose any restrictions on disk partitions but there are some caveats. - the granularity of a failover occurs via "failover groups". And you can only add disks (or logical disks if using RAID) to a group. (not individual partitions) So, creating 8 partitions on a RAID5 set means that all partitions must exist in that particular failover group. - Creating 16 partitions means that you'll be using 16 'dos drive letters'. This seems abit excessive to me since you need to consider that a failover of all groups to one server means that 16 drive letters will be used plus the local (non-shared) system partitions, floppy, CDdrive, network drives, etc. and you could exhaust or exceed the available drive letters for one server.
676.2	8, 10, 12, 14 partitions OK, 16 KO...	ULYSSE::STRATMAN	Peter Stratman @VBO	`Thu Mar 06 1997 17:25`	27
	Paul, Thanks for the answers so far. The reason I asked the question is because my customer installed his system, and created his 16 logical disks (OK up to then) which were recognised and available. He has drives A, C, D, E on each system plus the 16 other logical drives which is within the 24 letter NT limit. When he installed Clusters 1.0/SP1, Disk Administrator and Cluster Administrator were not able to see the "disks". The customer then uninstalled Clusters, repartitioned with only 8 (4 on each Raid Set) partitions, and this worked so I asked my question. I just heard that he patiently re-iterated this using 10, 12, 14 partitions, and all was fine. Then, going to 16 it broke again. So this does seem to indicate that there is a limit which would be 14 or 15. Is engineering listening ? I need to reply to the customer. If not, anyone I can mail to about this ? Thanks, Peter.
676.3	not sure what you're really asking here	MSE1::PCOTE	Just say yes to 'thin clients'	`Thu Mar 06 1997 18:52`	15
	> When he installed Clusters 1.0/SP1, Disk Administrator and Cluster > Administrator were not able to see the "disks". If NT can "see" 16 logical drives, then after installing NT clusters and assuming all these logical drives are on a shared bus, you should see 16 available disk objects via the cluster administrator. Not to ask the obvious, but the customer does understand that you need to move the disk ojbects into groups before he can "see" the drives. Right ?