Personal Computer User Manual

Configuring the Cluster Software 3-1
Chapter 3
Configuring the Cluster Software
T
his 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.
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.
L
ow-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.
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:
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.