16.9 Protecting Windows Clusters

PlateSpin Protect supports the protection of a Microsoft Windows Server Cluster business services. For information about requirements and options for protecting nodes in a Windows Server Cluster, see Section 13.0, Preparing for Windows Clusters Protection.

16.9.1 PlateSpin Failover

When the PlateSpin failover operation is complete and the virtual one-node cluster comes online, you see a multi-node cluster with one active node (all other nodes are unavailable).

To perform a PlateSpin failover (or to test the PlateSpin failover on) a Windows cluster, the cluster must be able to connect to a domain controller. To leverage the test failover functionality, you need to protect the domain controller along with the cluster. During the test, bring up the domain controller, followed by the Windows cluster workload (on an isolated network).

16.9.2 PlateSpin Failback

A PlateSpin failback operation requires a full replication for Windows Cluster workloads.

If you configure the PlateSpin failback as a full replication to a physical target, you can use one of these methods:

  • Map all disks on the PlateSpin virtual one-node cluster to a single local disk on the failback target.

  • Add another disk (Disk 2) to the physical failback machine. You can then configure the PlateSpin failback operation to restore the failover machine's system volume to Disk 1 and the failover machine's additional disks (previous shared disks) to Disk 2. This allows the system disk to be restored to the same size storage disk as the original source.

After a PlateSpin failback is complete, you must reattach the shared storage and rebuild the cluster environment before you can rejoin additional nodes to the newly restored cluster.

NOTE:When the cluster is at the stage of Ready To Reprotect, ensure that you first rebuild and restore the failback target so that it gets discovered as a cluster. You must manually uninstall the PlateSpin Cluster Driver as part of the rebuild process.

For information about rebuilding the cluster environment after a PlateSpin failover and failback occurs, see the following resources: