Failover Clustering Improvements

Improvements in Windows Server 2008 will simplify the setup and management of server clusters, which are groups of computers that work together to increase the availability of applications and services. Windows Cluster Services enables organizations to create clusters of servers (now referred to as failover clusters) that will automatically detect failure of a node in the cluster and switch to another node to keep the applications running.

A new validation wizard will help administrators to determine whether a set of servers, associated storage, and their network configuration is suitable for a cluster. These tests include specific simulations of cluster actions and validate requirements such as confirming that all servers are running the same version of the OS, that the network has redundancy, and that the storage supports the necessary SCSI commands and handles simulated cluster actions correctly.

Failover clusters now support both master boot record (MBR) and Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) partition table (GPT) disks in failover cluster storage. GPT disks can have partitions larger than 2TB and have built-in redundancy in the way that partition information is stored.