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Introduction 11
See "Quorum Disk (Quorum Resource)" and the MSCS online documentation for more
information.
NOTE: PowerEdge Cluster SE500W solutions do not support the Majority Node Set (MNS) Quorum
resource type.
Shared Storage Systems
Cluster nodes can share access to external storage systems; however, only one of the nodes can
own any RAID volume in the external storage system at any time. MSCS controls which node
has access to each RAID volume in the shared storage system.
Dell OpenManage™ Array Manager or Dell OpenManage enhanced Storage Manager provides
storage management and monitoring for SCSI storage components. See your Array Manager or
OMSM documentation for more information.
PowerEdge Cluster SE500W Solution
The PowerEdge Cluster SE500W solution implements two-node clustering technology based
on the MSCS software incorporated within the Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and Windows
Server 2003 operating systems. This cluster solution provides the following benefits to meet the
needs of mission-critical network application programs:
• High availability of system services and resources to network clients
• Redundant storage for application program data
• Failure recovery for cluster-aware applications
• Flexible maintenance capabilities, allowing you to repair, maintain, or upgrade a cluster node
without taking the entire cluster offline
Each cluster node is configured with software, storage, and network resources that enable it to
monitor and interact with the other node to provide mutually redundant operation. If a cluster
node fails for any reason, virtual servers and resource groups are failed over to the healthy cluster
node. When the failed node is repaired and brought back online, the virtual servers and resource
groups are failed back to the repaired node (if desired).
The cluster nodes, therefore, operate as a single resource, rather than a collection of individual
systems. Because the cluster nodes interact in this way, each virtual server appears as a single
system to the network clients.
Operating Systems
The PowerEdge Cluster SE500W solution supports two-node cluster configurations that vary in
size and performance. Table 1-1 provides an overview of the supported Windows
operating systems.
See your operating system documentation for a complete list of features.
se500wbk1.book Page 11 Thursday, June 16, 2005 4:19 PM