Planning To Upgrade Novell Cluster Services; Reviewing The Current Cluster; Upgrading Novell Cluster Services To Oes 2 Sp2 - Novell OPEN ENTERPRISE SERVER 2.0 SP2 - UPGRADING TO OES-PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE 12-2009 Implementation Manual

10.2 Planning to Upgrade Novell Cluster
Services
Section 10.2.1, "Reviewing the Current Cluster," on page 94
Section 10.2.2, "Upgrading Novell Cluster Services to OES 2 SP2," on page 94
Section 10.2.3, "Additional Information," on page 95

10.2.1 Reviewing the Current Cluster

Typically, the primary purpose of a cluster is to provide file and print services. Make sure you check
the volume resources because it is easy to overload these services. As a general guideline, Novell
recommends that NSS volume resources be kept at a total capacity of 80% or less. If you need to
reduce the number of standalone servers in production, the logical approach is to move data and
transfer services into the high availability resources of a cluster.
Review the health of NCS background operations to resolve any operational issues with the
cluster.
Make sure all cluster nodes are up to the latest support pack levels.
Avoid spanning LUNs across NSS pools
Where necessary, review and modify the cluster design to take full advantage of the High
Availability capabilities of current release software.
Novell recommends the following steps to address both the reliability and the performance of your
current cluster:
Make sure all NetWare nodes are at NetWare 6.5 SP7 or later
Use relatively small LUNs and data volumes
Introduce OES 2 SP2 nodes as required
Reconfigure the SAN to host DST shadow volumes

10.2.2 Upgrading Novell Cluster Services to OES 2 SP2

There are a two paths for moving existing NetWare clusters to OES: converting the existing clusters
(also referred to as a rolling cluster conversion) or using a parallel build.
Cluster Conversion (Same Cluster). In order to convert existing clusters, new OES 2 SP2
servers need to be built with the same LUN visibility as the existing NetWare nodes and the
new servers added to the existing cluster. The new OES nodes then mount the existing volumes
and services, and the NetWare servers are removed from the cluster and removed from
eDirectory. Although it is feasible to use a mixed NetWare and OES cluster temporarily as an
upgrade strategy, Novell does not recommend it as a permanent production implementation.
Parallel Build (New Cluster). A parallel-build OES upgrade strategy entails building a new
separate OES 2 SP2 cluster on the same SAN as the existing NetWare clusters. Doing so allows
resources to be moved to the new cluster by changing LUN visibility from the old cluster nodes
to the new. This can also be done in a phased approach. After the last resource is moved, the
NetWare cluster can be removed from the tree. Because it is a new cluster, the virtual server
names will change and login scripts and other references will need to be updated during the
upgrade process.
94 OES 2 SP2: Upgrading to OES—Planning and Implementation Guide