Dell 4200 manual Configuring the Cluster Software, Low-Level Software Configuration

Chapter 3

Configuring the Cluster Software

This chapter provides information about configuring the Dell PowerEdge Cluster system software. This guide does not provide instructions for installing the operating system or the cluster software. Installation instructions for the operating system are documented in the Microsoft Windows NT Server Enterprise Edition Administrator’s Guide and Release Notes. Instructions for installing the Microsoft clustering software are provided in the Microsoft Windows NT Cluster Server Adminstrator’s Guide. The information presented in this chapter serves as an addendum to the Microsoft documentation.

Important System Warning

The following warning message appears on your screen whenever you attempt to modify the configuration of the shared storage subsystem on your cluster using either the PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller BIOS configu- ration utility or the PowerEdge RAID Console utility:

!!!STOP!!!

This operation may change the configuration of disks and can cause loss of data! Ensure:

Before installing the Windows NT Server Enterprise Edi- tion operating system or the Cluster Server software, you should have your system hardware properly cabled for clustering. See Chapter 2 in this guide for instructions on connecting the components of your PowerEdge Cluster.

Low-Level Software

Configuration

Prior to installing Windows NT Server Enterprise Edi- tion, you must make specific low-level software configurations to the PowerEdge Cluster. Low-level soft- ware configurations are settings you make to the system before the operating system is installed.

The following subsections describe the low-level soft- ware settings that must be made to your system to enable clustering.

1.Peer server is powered up for its con- troller NVRAM to be updated. Otherwise, disk configuration should be read from disk and saved to controller's NVRAM.

2.The second server must not be configur- ing the disks.

3.There is no I/O activity against shared drives.

The warning appears immediately when you activate the redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) basic input/ output system (BIOS) configuration utility (by pressing <Ctrl><m> during the system’s power-on self-test [POST]), or whenever you attempt to perform a data- destructive operation in the PowerEdge RAID Console utility. Examples of data-destructive operations include clearing the configuration of the logical drives or chang- ing the RAID level of your shared hard-disk drives.

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