Hi all,
Just looking to get a second opinion from those with clustering experience.
We are about to deploy a multi-site failover cluster hosting a file server, 2 nodes in each site running server 2012 R2. The network between sites has 40GB connectivity and we are lucky in that it will be a layer 2 stretched network, so no need to re-IP anything, and servers will be on the sane subnet.
There are 6 NICs in the servers, 4 x 10GBE and 2 x 1GB. We will be using iSCSI storage.
At the moment, I've been working on the basis of:
- 2 x 10GBE - iSCSI storage network, MPIO configured
- 2 x 10GBE - Cluster / Client network, physical adapters in a team and 1 logical adapter in the OS
- 2 x 1GB - Unused
I've been wondering what the best path to take here is. I believe because we are teaming the NICs we will get a warning in the cluster validation tool as it will appear there is only one network for cluster traffic (though has resiliency through teaming). Given we have the 2 x 1GB adapters just sitting there not being used, should we cable them up in all 4 hosts as a dedicated cluster network, making it:
- 2 x 10GBE - iSCSI storage network, MPIO configured
- 2 x 10GBE - Cluster / Client network, physical adapters in a team and 1 logical adapter in the OS
- 2 x 1GB - Cluster network, physical adapters in a team and 1 logical adapter in the OS, on a different subnet from the above network
I'd really appreciate any thoughts, I'm working on the final configuration now before placing the orders.
Cheers, Matt.