RA4100 on 2 Proliant 8500R without clustering

[Erik Palzer]

I??ve tried to share a defined Array on a RA4100 with 12 x 18,2 Gb HDD on two COMPAQ Proliant 8500R Servers. OS is Windows 2000 Adv. Server SP3. and I use a 7 Port Fibre Hub.
On the first server I??ve formated the array
as a W2K-Basis Volume with NTFS. After the second server was installed i??ve connected him to the fibre hub and windows found the partion the drive letter and the files on the volume i??ve copied for testing from the first server on it. Also i can copy and get files from the second server to the array, but the first server don??t see the changings. It is also not understandible that you delete files from the first server on the array and you can browse on the second server across the array and see the files, but if you will open anyone you get an error that the File-System is broken. The only way to get shortly synchronisized is to reboot the server, at starting it check??s the file system, bring some error??s of missing files and than it is for this time correct.

I don??t want do install a cluster-service because we want to use CITRIX Metaframe an Loadbalancing on them.

Is there a solution for this? Is a Software needed?

[Doug de Werd]

Both of the servers cannot have access to the same partitions/volumes at the same time. If you try to do this, you will end up with corrupt data. Each server must be assigned access to its own dedicated LUNs through Selective Storage Presentation (SSP) in the Array Configuration Utility (ACU).

If you want both servers to access the same partitions, then you will need to use some other type of software, such as Polyserve, that is supposed to let you do this. Standard Windows will not let you share the same physical partition/volume.

Thanks,
Doug

[Gert Luyten]

Doug is completely correct, you'll have to configure SSP via ACU to assign a LUN to each host. This is not a complex task. Read the ACU helpfile for more info but I would recommend the latest firmware on the RA4100 and using a more recent ACU (higher than 2.90).

Hey Doug, nice to see you on the forum. Maybe we can catch up on the next I3T?

Rgds, Gert.