How do I setup a multi-node cluster with Cornerstone?
Reasoning
I want to have multiple nodes of Cornerstone available to service incoming connections for high availability purposes or simply to have a failover option in case one server goes down.
Answer
You can use Cornerstone Cluster settings to have multiple nodes share the same configuration and access the same data location so they can service all incoming connections.
Pre-requisites:
- You need a load balancer in front of the Cornerstone servers to be able to direct traffic to all available Cornerstone nodes.
Steps
- Install Cornerstone MFT and create a server to be the primary server in a cluster.
- Set the server name and parameters which include IP address, data directory location and logs location. NOTE: All servers in the cluster will need to access the same data directory.
- Connect to your SQL server so you can create the database which will house the shared configuration for all nodes in the cluster.
- Enable desired protocols.
- Select the desired authentication method.
- Input SMTP parameters for notifications.
- Click on finish.
- Create a new server on the second node in the cluster and select “This server will be a new member server in an existing clustered server environment”.
- Connect to the same SQL server as on the primary node and select the database you created on the primary node.
- Select the shared database you created on the primary node to confirm that the secondary node will the same database.
- Choose the IP address for this second node.
- Click on Finish.
- Follow the same steps for any additional nodes added to the cluster.