Clustering NetWare - Today's Lesson

Hello Folks

I thought I would share with you an experience that my customer had with Novell Clustering Services. The outcome was that my customer lost all the data on the SAN supporting 12 Cluster nodes running GroupWise post offices. Fortunately the post offices were all empty post offices, they are planning on migrating users over in early March. But if the users had been migrated to these post offices, the effect would have been devastating!

1. The customer plugged a server box into the SAN, and proceeded to do an installation of NetWare 6.5.

2. The customer installed NetWare 6.5, and just took all of the defaults, clicking the "Yes" button all the way through.

NOTE: At the very beginning of the NetWare 6.5 installation, the installation assesses all of the available disk space and asks if the operator would like to have NetWare reformat it and make it accessible for the NetWare 6.5 server. The customer said "Yes".

3. Nothing adverse seemed to happen!

4. The next day the customer attempted to add the new NetWare 6.5 server to the cluster, which caused a re-read of the Partition tables on the SAN, and WHAM! All cluster nodes went comatose, and all NSS volumes were gone.

It was the NetWare 6.5 installation from the day before that actually caused this problem, but none of the nodes were aware of the problem until they re-read the partition tables.

In NetWare 6.5 SP3 there will be a warning box so that customers are less likely to do this. More than one customer has experienced this, development was aware of the issue when my customer's issue was reported to them.


Regards
Tay

Open Enterprise Server Launches in Feb - come see

Open Enterprise Server launches this month! Do you want to see what all the excitement is about?

1. Denver Area Novell Users Group DANUG will meet Wednesday, Feb 9 at 6pm at the Novell DTC Office for a presentation and first look at Novell Open Enterprise Server.

I'm sure you've heard of OES by now. Novell Services can be installed on NetWare or a Suse Linux Enterprise Server. I have to say I've been playing (yes having fun) with this and it's revolutionary! I've haven't been this excited since going from NetWare 2.x with VAP's to NetWare 3.x with NLM's....

If you choose NetWare it's basically a NetWare 6.5 SP3 server with some added features such as a BASH.NLM that allows you to emulate a Linux Bash Shell right on NetWare. Another cool little feature is that you can SSH (Telnet) right into a NetWare Console Prompt.
If you choose Linux as the Kernal / OS you can install NSS as a file system. You can use iManager to manage your Linux stuff. You can even Cluster two OES servers - doesn't matter if it's a Linux or NetWare kernal!
If you plan on attending, please send a quick email to Mark Harvey the President of DANUG markgharvey@yahoo.com

2. Colorado Linux Users Enthusiasts CLUE Installfest will be held on Saturday, February 12th at DeVry University.

FYI
See the following articles:
OES
http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2005/020705kearns.html?fsrc=rss-novell

http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/netware/2005/0131nw2.html?fsrc=rss-novell

http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/netware/2005/0131nw1.html?fsrc=rss-novell


3. Novell and HP are hosting an OES Roadshow / Seminar on February 24th in Denver. Registration is required.
http://www.novell.com/products/openenterpriseserver/seminar.html

Novell OES Launch in February

Come see a first look at Open Enterprise Server
Announcement: group meeting
Date: 9 Feb
Time: 6:00pm
Location: Novell Denver Office, 5299 DTC Blvd. Suite 1350 Corner of
DTC Blvd. and Prentiss Ave.

Topics:
- BrainShare 2005 group discounts
- Product First Look: Novell Open Enterprise Server

Hope you can make it. I've posted the 2005 schedule in the DANUG-NUI Yahoo Group account. Please create an account for yourself if you
don't have one so that you can post messages & files to the group and receive any notices.

FYI: Anyone interested in seeing SuSE Linux Enterprise Server & getting some hands on time with it, can attend the CLUE North Install
Fest. I will be there with a couple of machines for our use. Follow this link for more details
http://www.cluedenver.org/installfest.html

====================
CLUE Installfest

The next CLUE Installfest will be held on Saturday, February 12th,
from 10am to 4pm, at DeVry University, room 341.

The DeVry University Westminster campus is located on 122nd Ave, just west of Pecos St.

Address: 1870 West 122 Avenue, Westminster, CO 80112


I hope to see you all at these events.

Thanks.

Mark
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NetMaker, Inc.(303) 300-3911http://www.netmaker.biz