Cluster Switch Hardware

New to clustering and wanted to know if anyone had any hardware suggestions
with regard to the dedicated switch for the heartbeat network.
Initially this will be a 2 node Active/Active cluster hosting SQL Server
connected to a SAN. I do expect to add at least another set of clustered
hosts or two before year's end.
We typically use all Cisco equipment.
Suggestions?
"john d" <johnd@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:D9FCFA8C-13FB-4A7C-9E88-9573BEF9C047@.microsoft.com...
> New to clustering and wanted to know if anyone had any hardware
> suggestions
> with regard to the dedicated switch for the heartbeat network.
Anything will work for you. I, personally, prefer dumb hubs. That way Bucky
can misconfigure it and hose up my heartbeat network.
Russ Kaufmann
MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
ClusterHelp.com, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner
Web http://www.clusterhelp.com
Blog http://msmvps.com/clusterhelp
The next ClusterHelp classes are:
Denver starting Feb 12th
NYC starting Feb 19th
|||I agree with Russ. The bandwith requirements for the heartbeat are really
low. I wish I could get some old co-ax NICS and just run a single cable
instead of an active device.
Geoff N. Hiten
Senior Database Administrator
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
"Russ Kaufmann [MVP]" <russ@.clusterhelp.com> wrote in message
news:erF4iczOHHA.4280@.TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> "john d" <johnd@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:D9FCFA8C-13FB-4A7C-9E88-9573BEF9C047@.microsoft.com...
> Anything will work for you. I, personally, prefer dumb hubs. That way
> Bucky can misconfigure it and hose up my heartbeat network.
>
> --
> Russ Kaufmann
> MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
> ClusterHelp.com, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner
> Web http://www.clusterhelp.com
> Blog http://msmvps.com/clusterhelp
> The next ClusterHelp classes are:
> Denver starting Feb 12th
> NYC starting Feb 19th
>
|||Geoff/Russ - Thanks for your input. Glad I didn't already go out and buy a
switch.
"Geoff N. Hiten" wrote:

> I agree with Russ. The bandwith requirements for the heartbeat are really
> low. I wish I could get some old co-ax NICS and just run a single cable
> instead of an active device.
> --
> Geoff N. Hiten
> Senior Database Administrator
> Microsoft SQL Server MVP
>
> "Russ Kaufmann [MVP]" <russ@.clusterhelp.com> wrote in message
> news:erF4iczOHHA.4280@.TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>
|||For a 2-node system, we typically use just a network cross-over cable. If
you expand this cluster for additional nodes, the heartbeat uses multi-cast
to communicate (Win2K3); so, you will definitely want to isolate this
network from the others, either by constructing a physical interconnect
between the servers or through a larger corporate switch interconnect and
the use of VLANs.
Regardless, unless you also duplicate the hardware, this network will also
represent a Single Point of Failure. If you are unfamiliar with this term,
you should learn it. It is the single most important concept with regards
to Highly Available systems.
In this case, you must provide multiple network paths between the servers.
In addition to the dedicated heartbeat network, we typically allow the
public network to also transport cluster heartbeat communications. In
Cluster Administrator, on the cluster object, you can specify the network
priority for cluster communications, but also include the secondary network
as a fail-safe.
Sincerely,
Anthony Thomas

"john d" <johnd@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:DC09A8BC-4126-4002-B526-401B90D2A1DB@.microsoft.com...
> Geoff/Russ - Thanks for your input. Glad I didn't already go out and buy
a[vbcol=seagreen]
> switch.
>
> "Geoff N. Hiten" wrote:
really[vbcol=seagreen]