How to configure the failover cluster in Windows

Observer Reporting Server uses the failover feature from Network Load Balancing (NLB) in Windows to manage when failover should occur. NLB is not installed as part of Windows by default. This is part one of a two part procedure.

Prerequisite(s):

Windows Server 2008 R2 installed.

The computer system must have two network adapters. Each must be configured to use different subnets. One adapter is for Observer Reporting Server communication and the second is for responding to HTTP requests and for maintaining the failover configuration.

1.	On the primary Observer Reporting Server system, open the Server Manager by choosing Start > Administrative Tools > Server Manager.

2.	In Server Manager, click Action > Add Features.

3.	In the Add Features Wizard, select Network Load Balancing (NLB) and then click Next to complete the wizard. It may be necessary to restart the system for the Network Load Balancing feature to be fully enabled.

4.	Complete step 1 through step 3 on the failover Observer Reporting Server system.

5.	On the primary Observer Reporting Server system, open the Network Load Balancing Manager by choosing Start > Administrative Tools > Network Load Balancing Manager.

6.	Choose Cluster > New. Type the IP address of the primary Observer Reporting Server system and click Connect. The available network interface names and IP addresses appear.

7.	Select the interface to be used for NLB. It will respond to Observer Reporting Server HTTP requests. Click Next.

8.	In the Host Parameters window:

Keep Priority at 1. This sets the primary system in the failover cluster. For the failover system, set Priority to 2.

In the Dedicated IP addresses section, remove any addresses if they exist. This ensures that only one IP address is configured for the network adapter.

In the Default State field, set the state to Stopped. Observer Reporting Server handles when to start and stop the NLB service.

9.

In the Cluster Parameters window, you may change the Full Internet Name if you wish, but it is not necessary. If you do change the name, you must also change it on the failover system. The names must match. This allows both Observer Reporting Server systems in the cluster to respond to a domain name (rather than just an IP address) in your web browser when viewing reports. In the Cluster Operation Mode, leave it as “Unicast.” Click Next.

10.	In the Port Rules window, if there are any rules, select each and remove it. Observer Reporting Server does not use this feature , and therefore any rules must be removed. Click Finish.

11.	In the Cluster list, select the cluster IP address (192.168.5.100 in above figure). Right-click and choose Add Host to Cluster.

12.	Type the IP address of the failover Observer Reporting Server system and click Connect.

13.	Repeat step 7 to step 10. It may take a moment before the failover system appears in the NLB cluster.

Now the Windows portion is complete; it is time to begin configuring Observer Reporting Server.