Even with typical fault tolerant feature found in the latest high-end server hardware, such as redundant power supplies and mirrored or RAID 5 disk arrays, failed devices must be identified and replacement components must be procured and installed. These failures can bring down a server for hours, if not days. Furthermore, during regularly scheduled software maintenance functions, servers need to be rebooted or brought off-line for an extended period. For customers who need 100% uptime, the only solution is to deploy a clustered server configuration that provides fully redundant servers for a single application.

A server cluster is a group of independent computers that work together to provide a common set of services. Windows 2003 provides this high-availability solution with the Cluster service. If a cluster node (a computer in a cluster) fails, other nodes in the cluster assume the functions of the failed node. Server clustering is an essential piece of any fault-tolerant architecture, and making large investments in communication infrastructure redundancy without providing for server redundancy defeats the value of that investment.

Progent offers Windows 2003 Server consulting to help your company implement clustered server configurations that can potentially provide 100% uptime, even for normal maintenance functions. This high-availability is possible because a single server in a cluster can be brought off-line for maintenance work without affecting users. Clustering also allows IT personal to perform critical security updates during regular business hours without reducing user productivity.

Microsoft Windows 2003 Server offers mature clustering technology. This is the third major release of Microsoft clustering technology, which was first released in 1997. Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition, present a single view of the server to users, applications, and the network and both versions of Windows Server 2003 support up to eight-node clusters. Failover clustering configurations can be built around Microsoft technologies for mission-critical and collaborative applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server file and print services.

Host Clustering with Microsoft Virtual Server
Virtual Server host clustering is a technique for enhancing the capability of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 with the server cluster support incorporated in Microsoft Windows Server 2003. By means of Virtual Server host clustering, your network can benefit from an array of services via a minimum number of actual hardware servers and, simultaneously, ensure the high availability of the provided services. In case one server requires scheduled or unscheduled downtime, another server can immediately take its place and begin supporting services. As a result, your clients experience minimal service disruption. Progent's Microsoft-certified network engineers have in-depth experience deploying and supporting Microsoft Virtual Server. For more information, refer to Consulting Services for Microsoft Virtual Server.

Server Clustering and Storage Area Networks
A storage area network (SAN) is a set of disks, tapes, and servers connected to a common infrastructure, or storage fabric, such as Fibre Channel. A SAN allows multiple servers to access a common pool of storage. This allows storage to be assigned dynamically from the pool whenever it is required. Storage on a given server can be increased or decreased as needed without complex reconfiguring or re-cabling of devices. SAN technology is a good way to build clusters where shared access to a data set is required. By deploying multiple clusters onto a single storage area network, all of the benefits of SAN technology can be brought to the cluster environment. Progent’s Microsoft certified engineers can show you how to combine Microsoft’s server cluster technology with storage area networking to make your network more fault tolerant and easier to manage.

Server Clustering with Microsoft Exchange
Messaging systems based on Microsoft Exchange are vital for many businesses. Unfortunately, this crucial function is vulnerable to component failure, power loss, operator errors, and natural disasters. By allowing the failover of resources, server clustering provides fault tolerance for an Exchange environment. Server clusters that use the Microsoft Cluster Service can maintain data integrity and provide failover support and high availability for mission-critical applications and services on your back-end servers, including messaging systems, databases, and file and print services.

This figure shows an example of a four-node Exchange cluster with three active nodes and a passive standby node:

Progent's Microsoft-certified Exchange experts have proven, world-class skills in designing high-availability Exchange environments and can show you how to configure an Exchange Server cluster with shared data access to data and automatic failover capabilities. For details about Exchange consulting services available from Progent, visit Microsoft Exchange Consulting Support.

Additional Non-stop Technologies Offered by Progent's Consultants
Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-certified engineers can assist your business implement a cost-effective, high-availability network that resolves major challenges encompassing a broad range of networking technologies and processes such as:

24x7 Internet Access Solutions
Progent's Cisco-certified network consultants can show you how to create an economical, fault tolerant Internet connection solution that can achieve non-stop Internet access via a wide range of fault tolerant Internet network solutions including non-stop BGP, transparent fail-over, and redundant ISPs. Progent can provide CCIE consultants to show you how to utilize the latest technology for fault tolerant Internet connections to create an economical, completely redundant Internet interface with automatic failover and other capabilities to create non-stop Internet availability. To read more, visit High Availability Internet Access Architecture

Fault Tolerant Load Balancing
Progent provides fault tolerant load balancing support covering network load balancing, load balanced programs, LAN/WAN backbone routing, and content delivery technology such as Cisco Content Engine. Non-stop load balancing providers for which Progent can provide consulting expertise include Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Load Balancing Manager, Citrix Metaframe and Access Gateway, Cisco Content Services Switch, Cisco Distributed Director and Cisco CDN Software, and F5 Networks BIG-IP. For more information, see Non-stop Load Balancing.

Non-stop Data Centers
Progent's Data Center professionals can show you how to find high availability data centers that match the particular needs of your company. High availability Internet Data Centers are especially appealing to small businesses because of their affordability and convenience compared to pursuing a do-it-yourself approach. Trying to build an in-house data center that offers even a minimum level of fault tolerance is too costly for typical small organizations. Progent is ready to show you how to reap all the advantages of high availability data centers and fault tolerant colo sites by providing a full array of consulting and maintenance services. For more information, go to Fault Tolerant Data Centers Consulting.

Failsafe Inter-office Networking
Progent’s non-stop inter-site connectivity and fault tolerant system infrastructure consultants can help small businesses create fault tolerant Interoffice connectivity by means of redundant networks featuring transparent failover. Progent’s Cisco-certified Cisco Certified Internetwork Experts can design and deploy fault tolerant Inter-office networks supported by non-stop EIGRP network routers or non-stop OSPF deployment of Cisco routers. Progent can demonstrate how redundant connections and automatic fail-over offers economical 24x7 interoffice networking. To read more, see Fault Tolerant Interoffice Connectivity.

Disaster Recovery Consulting and Business Continuity Consulting Experts
Progent's disaster recovery support and business continuity professionals can help you create a disaster recovery strategy in case of an IT system catastrophe. Progent can help you create a comprehensive disaster recovery plan that incorporates scheduled disaster recovery evaluations and testing. Progent's Microsoft and Cisco-authorized engineers can also help you create an affordable, high-availability system architecture that takes into account reliability issues involving a broad range of network technologies and procedures. To read more, see Disaster Recovery Consulting.

Microsoft DPM Data Recovery Consultants
Progent's expert Data Protection Manager support professionals can help your company to develop a practical disaster recovery plan, design a cost-effective non-stop IT architecture, install a Microsoft Data Protection Manager-based recovery solution, comprehensively validate your system, educate your IT personnel or local consultants how to maintain DPM, or provide complete IT outsourcing including off-site hosting of Microsoft DPM servers in Progent's secure data center facility. To find out more, go to Data Protection Manager Consulting and Support Services.

Why Companies Choose Progent
Because Progent is a Microsoft Gold Partner and provides high-level application expertise for a wide range of business software programs, Progent can help customers to find comprehensive IT solutions that substantially enhance the productivity of your network. As a Registered Partner with Cisco Systems, Progent can provide the services of qualified engineers and specialists with experience in architecting, implementing and managing networking environments based on Cisco technology. The breadth of Progent's technical know-how and Progent's familiarity with the requirements of small companies make Progent the ideal resource for building and maintaining a cost-effective, fault-tolerant network.

How You Can Contact Progent's Experts for Fault Tolerant Computing Support
In order to get in touch with Progent about consulting expertise for high availability infrastructure, call 1-800-993-9400 or send email to fault-tolerant-help@progent.com.