Overview

In his book In Search of Clusters, Gregory Pfister defines a cluster as "a parallel or distributed system that consists of a collection of interconnected whole computers which are utilized as a single, unified computing resource." While the concept of clustering has been around in the computer industry for many years, the technology is relatively new to the Windows NT/Windows 2000 environment. In Microsoft's endeavors to make the Windows technology ever more reliable, clustering technology is one area to which they have turned. Microsoft's approach to clustering has differed from other operating system vendors. As organizations begin to take Windows NT/2000 technology more seriously and deploy more and more mission-critical applications on this platform, clustering will become increasingly important.

For Exchange 2000, clustering technology will offer significant reliability benefits for organizations willing to invest in this technology. As the Exchange Server platform becomes a basis for more application solutions and business-critical processes, the benefits of clustering will become quite necessary. In addition, as Microsoft strives to position Exchange 2000 as a platform for Internet service providers (ISP) and application service providers (ASP), high-availability technologies such as clustering will be a high-priority requirement. As such, it is necessary for us to spend some time discussing clustering technology available in Windows 2000 and how this technology can be leveraged to provide mission-critical capabilities for Exchange 2000 deployments.