HP StorageWorks Clustered File System 3.6.0 Windows Storage Server Edition Administration Guide (403103-005, January 2008)

Chapter 15: Configure Virtual Hosts 179
The failover operation to another network interface has minimal impact
on clients. For example, if clients were downloading Web pages during
the failover, they would receive a “transfer interrupted” message and
could simply reload the Web page. If they were reading Web pages, they
would not notice any interruption.
If the active network interface fails, only the virtual hosts associated with
that interface are failed over. If the underlying server has other virtual
hosts configured on another network interface, those virtual hosts will
continue to access that server.
For more information about failover, see “Virtual Hosts and Failover” on
page 185.
Guidelines for Creating Virtual Hosts
When creating virtual hosts, follow these guidelines:
• When planning the virtual hosts needed for your cluster, first
determine the network services that will be available to your clients.
Then determine the IP addresses for those services. You will need to
create a virtual host for each IP address.
• Choose virtual hostnames that differ from your actual server names.
Virtual hosts are independent of specific servers, and their names
should be independent as well.
• Use an IP address that is on the same subnet as the network interfaces
where it will be configured.
•Update the hosts file (%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) or
the DNS name service with the virtual hostnames and IP addresses.
(For improved performance, the Management Console caches
hostname lookups. If your DNS changes, you may need to restart the
console so that it will reflect the new hostname.)
• Do not manually configure the IP address in the operating system or a
system startup script. HP Clustered File System configures the
operating system appropriately to support the virtual host.
• After creating virtual hosts, you will need to configure your
applications to recognize them.