Finally Got Cluster (Sort Of) Working
After my arduous cluster experience, I’ve finally got a cluster sort of working in VMware. I had to give up on using iSCSI, which seemed to be highly unstable with the Microsoft initiator, using either the Linux-based iSCSI Enterprise Target or the Rocket Division target.
I ended up hacking my virtual machines’ .vmx files as per this forum post, which works despite being unsupported in VMWare Workstation in the hopes of forcing you to run the much more expensive GSX Server (dick move, VMware).
Now my cluster is sort of stable. The standby node does still hang inexplicably from time to time, but I was able to get Exchange 2k3 SP2 installed on both nodes without a hitch.
I shouldn’t be surprised how lame the Microsoft HA solution is, but I am.
Tags: cluster, exchange, microsoft, Migrated from Drupal, tech diary