Chapter 9. DHCP Failover: Using Clusters
In this chapter, I will be discussing the use of the Cluster service included in Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Datacenter Server.
The Cluster service allows multiple nodes to be combined to work in unison, either to divide workload or to provide failover capabilities. Combining the Cluster service with the DHCP service provides a degree of DHCP failover.
The installation of a DHCP cluster is a lengthy and detailed process. This chapter explains many of the steps in planning and installing the DHCP cluster.
Windows Clustering
In Windows NT 4.0 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft included a new service known as Windows Clustering. Commonly known as the Cluster service, it is one of two services designed to provide high availability to Windows 2000. The other service is called Network Load Balancing. These services are only available in Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.
Applications that may require high availability are typically enterprise applications such as messaging, databases, and yes, DHCP.
Clusters enable a collection of computers to act as one entity. This collection of computers can then share application load or provide failover protection without the user having any knowledge that several servers are involved.
The Cluster Service
The Cluster service makes it possible to connect multiple servers together to form server clusters. Server clusters provide increased availability: multiple servers in the server ...
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