Hello All,
I thought that I had once seen a document on ipswitch's
site regarding setting up WS_FTP Server in conjunction with Microsoft Cluster
Server (MSCS) for an "active/passive" style fail-over implementation.
However, I can find no documentation on this anywhere. Was I
dreaming?
I know I can pretty easily simply make the WS_FTP Server
processes part of a standard Cluster Group within Cluster Admin, so the basic
setup will be easy. But I have a few concerns since so much (all) of the
WS_FTP Server configuration data is stored in the registry (userid's, passwords,
folders, permissions, virtual folders, etc.)
I expect to use an external database (SQL Server) to store
the username / password combinations -- so that will be centralized regardless
of which node is active, but what about all the other configuration
data?
Will MSCS "magically" ensure that any changes made to the
configuration of WS_FTP on "Node A" when it's active are propagated or otherwise
synchronized / available to "Node B" in the event of a failover? If not,
can it be automated? How would I go about this?
As an aside, we had thought about using NLB (network load
balancing), the other Microsoft "clustering" technology, to have two active
WS_FTP servers -- use NLB to "pin" an inbound connection to one server (since we
use SSL). But again, the registry / configuration data synchronization
problem arises.
Thanks for any feedback or comments.
Pete
PS: Dear IpSwitch, since some of you monitor the list,
maybe making WS_FTP Server "cluster aware" in the MS world would be a marketable
feature. A quick search of the web didn't find anything, not even MS's own
ftp server is "cluster aware".
