topic Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server in BladeSystem - General

Windows 2008 64bits File Server

JMMartinez — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:47:51 GMT

Hi,

Our HP Proliant DL580 G2 cluster file server (W2003 32bits) is getting out of date and it is struggling to handle the amount of work required nowadays. We are thinking to replace the servers mention above to 2 BL 460c G6 blades, and I want to use a 64 bits OS.

Are there many differences setting up a file cluster on a w2k3 and a w2k8?.

If using W2008, is there any difference to the user community when accessing the folders/files?.

Regards
Jose

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

Igor Karasik — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:15:18 GMT

>>Are there many differences setting up a file cluster on a w2k3 and a w2k8?.

A little different
http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2009/01/09/file-share-scoping-in-windows-server-2008-failover-clusters.aspx

>>If using W2008, is there any difference to the user community when accessing the folders/files?.

No.
We start to use win2008 file servers (not clusters) and users not feel any difference
But if you plan to use these servers as print servers - you need to consider 64-bit drivers issue

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

JMMartinez — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:58:20 GMT

Are the steps below the same for either a W2K3 and a W2K8 FS cluster?:

1- Install failover cluster feature
2- Validate cluster configuration
3- Create cluster
4- Present the storage to the new file cluster

Thsnks
Jose

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

JMMartinez — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:15:25 GMT

I have heard that the cluster migration wizard only works on server 2008. So if I decide to go for server 2003 64-bit it will mean Iâ ll need to re-create all resources on the new cluster?.

Regards

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

Igor Karasik — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:55:16 GMT

>>Are the steps below the same for either a W2K3 and a W2K8 FS cluster?:

Generally speaking, Yes

>> have heard that the cluster migration wizard only works on server 2008. So if I decide to go for server 2003 64-bit it will mean IÃ¢Â Â ll need to re-create all resources on the new cluster?.

AFAIK, you can migrate most of the settings from Win2003 cluster to win2008 with some limitations
http://www.realtime-windowsserver.com/systems_management_monitoring/2008/06/w2003_to_w2008_cluster_migrati.htm

But why you may decide to go to win2003 ????

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

JMMartinez — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:44:19 GMT

Thank you Igor.

Good question :). I need to show my TL that going for W2K8 will not be a risk and will provide benefits to the file server Cluster.

Last question. The workload to our FS has increased during last year, this has made the FS struggle to cover all the demands from systems and users community. Do you think a last generation of server blades(BL 460c G6 - OS 32 bits) will be enough to make our FS stable and good enough or using a 64 bits will really make a difference?.

Regards
Jose

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

kris rombauts — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:03:14 GMT

Jose,

check where the bottleneck is at the moment, is it on the network side, the disk i/o load or is it at the cpu level i.e. Then when you have a good idea of that, you can compare with the newer hardware and see if that would help with the performance question that you are wondering about.

Things like network teaming and implementing TCP offloading (TOE) might help
for the network throughput and offloading your cpu's from having to process this traffic. For the disk i/o, see if it is local or is it on a SAN i.e. ... so as you see, there are different area's to look at to be able to answer your last question really.

HTH

Kris

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

Igor Karasik — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:50:34 GMT

Most likely bottleneck on File server is disks, and only option to improve situation is to use SAN
And regarding 32-bit vs 64-bit:
For file server definitely go to 64-bit !
The reason to install 32-bit OS on server in our days maybe only some application which don't supported on 64-bit (for example you currenly cannot install Microsoft ISA on 64-bit OS)
Note that windows 2008 R2 will have only 64-bit version

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

JMMartinez — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:27:21 GMT

The FS cluster is connected to a SAN (EVA3K and EVA6K). We have been experiencing latetly every 2 weeks that the file share resources start to fail with events "2021 - the server was unable to allocate a work item 6 times in the last 60 seconds" and "1055 - Cluster File shared resourced 'Migrated Files' has failed a status check. The error code is 64" finishing with event "2019 - The server was unable to allocate from the system non page pool because the pool was empty". Any suggestions?.

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

Igor Karasik — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:43:04 GMT

There are many information/links about these errors
http://www.eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=2021&eventno=881&source=Srv&phase=1
and other places
Did you tried to play with paremeters ?
These errors related to windows configuration issues (and I assume you will not have tehse errors with 64-bit OS)

Re: Windows 2008 64bits File Server

JMMartinez — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:54:32 GMT

Good suggestions to check on regards our FS issues. We will move to W2K8 64 bits.