Cluster Resources
Since clustering centers on multiple server nodes controlling specific disk resources,
you must usually configure numerous cluster resources. Ultimately, all cluster
resources, no matter how minor, have a dependency on a specific disk resource and
a specific IP address, but a failover doesn??™t imply a problem with disk storage.
All too often, clustering is used only to mitigate hardware disasters, but cluster
resources can be used in a number of creative ways to protect against process and
user disasters as well. In addition to the server itself, you can configure the following
resource types for failover in a cluster:
??? Drive partitions
??? IP addresses
??? Network names
??? Network shares
??? Print spoolers
??? IIS
??? SMTP
??? FTP
??? Custom applications and services
CHAPTER 7 n CLUSTERING 177
As you can see, clustering can do much more than protect SQL Server from hardware
failure. Your applications may have dependencies on services other than SQL Server. Clever
uses of clustering, such as having a custom application run a batch file of some sort that
the clustering service interprets as a failure, can be a creative way to easily gain programmatic
control over failover.
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