Administrator's Guide

File share resource planning issues
SMB and NFS are cluster-aware protocols that support the Active/Active cluster model, allowing
resources to be distributed and processed on both nodes at the same time. For example, some
NFS file share resources can be assigned to a group owned by a virtual server for Node A and
additional NFS file share resources can be assigned to a group owned by a virtual server for Node
B.
Configuring the file shares as cluster resources provides for high availability of file shares. Because
the resources are placed into groups, ownership of the files can easily move from one node to the
other, as circumstances require. If the cluster node owning the group of file shares should be shut
down or fail, the other node in the cluster will begin sharing the directories until the original owner
node is brought back on line. At that time, ownership of the group and its resources can be brought
back to the original owner node.
Resource planning
1. Create a cluster group for each node in the cluster with an IP address resource and a network
name resource.
Cluster resource groups are used to balance the processing load on the servers. Distribute
ownership of the groups between the virtual servers.
2. For NFS environments, configure the NFS server.
NFS specific procedures include entering audit and file lock information as well as setting up
client groups and user name mappings. These procedures are not unique to a clustered
deployment and are detailed in the Microsoft Services for NFS section within the “Other
network file and print services” chapter. Changes to NFS setup information are automatically
replicated to all nodes in a cluster.
3. Create the file share resources.
4. Assign ownership of the file share resources to the resource groups.
a. Divide ownership of the file share resource between the resource groups, which are in
turn distributed between the virtual servers, for effective load balancing.
b. Verify that the physical disk resource for this file share is also included in this group.
c. Verify that the resources are dependent on the virtual servers and physical disk resources
from which the file share was created.
Permissions and access rights on share resources
File Share and NFS Share permissions must be managed using the Failover Cluster Management
tool versus the individual shares on the file system themselves via Windows Explorer. Administering
them through the Failover Cluster Management tool allows the permissions to migrate from one
node to other. In addition, permissions established using Explorer are lost after the share is failed
or taken offline.
NFS cluster-specific issues
For convenience, all suggestions are listed below:
• Back up user and group mappings.
To avoid loss of complex advanced mappings in the case of a system failure, back up the
mappings whenever the mappings have been edited or new mappings have been added.
• Map consistently.
Groups that are mapped to each other should contain the same users and the members of the
groups should be properly mapped to each other to ensure proper file access.
Cluster groups and resources, including file shares 67