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arex1337
Asked: 2012-10-07 02:07:06 +0800 CST

How do I network this Windows Failover Cluster and MongoDB Replica Set? (diagram inside)

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enter image description here

As you can see, my two Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) nodes have three network interfaces each, which connects them to three different networks :

  1. A public network
  2. A private network consisting of the WSFC nodes
  3. A private network consisting of the WSFC nodes and a machine with the WSFC Quorum Witness File Share

Does this network configuration I've planned, make sense? Do I have the "right" number of NICs and networks? I'm thinking the 2nd NIC/network may be unnecessary.

My two MongoDB Replica Set nodes also have three network interfaces each - very similar to the previous situation:

  1. A public network
  2. A private network consisting of the primary and secondary MongoDB Replica Set nodes
  3. A private network consisting of the primary, secondary and arbiter MongoDB Replica Set nodes

Does this network configuration, make sense? Do I have the "right" number of NICs and networks? I'm thinking the 2nd NIC/network may be unnecessary.

Here is the simpler version I'm considering: enter image description here

UPDATE:

enter image description here

networking

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    There are two questions here, one for MS clustering, and another one for Mongo.

    MS Clustering

    The decision of where to put the public, heart-beat, inter-node communication, and quorum drive is significant. Also cluster architecture makes a difference; you pick different quroum options if the two nodes are in adjacent racks than if they were in completely different datacenters.

    Put the heartbeat on the same interface/subnet as the public interface

    This theory holds that if you lose your public interface, you want the heartbeat to fail because this node is effectively down to users.

    Put the heartbeat on it's own private interface/subnet

    This theory holds that something outside of the cluster is arbiting who is doing what role, and unnecessary node-death is to be avoided.

    Put the WFS on the heartbeat network

    If the two nodes are in the same overall network (the same set of switches is supporting the non-public networks for both nodes) then putting the WFS on the heartbeat network doesn't introduce any new vulnerabilities.

    If the two nodes are in different network fault domains (such as different datacenters), this is a bad idea. The heartbeat network provides the 'node majority' quorum option, and the WFS provides the 'File Share Majority' quorum option. You really want both options to be in separate fault domains.

    Your revised diagram makes sense if both nodes are in the same data-center, though I myself would but the heartbeat on the public side.

    MongoDB

    MongoDB is a bit simpler. With even numbers of nodes, you absolutely want a third node to act as tie-breaker. They're pretty clear about that. However, your diagram states:

    Up to 12 replica members (7 can vote).

    7 is an odd number. You don't require an Arbiter.

    Unlike Microsoft clusters, Mongo's cluster voting doesn't care about multiple avenues of network to break voting deadlocks. Because of this, separate arbitration and cluster-internal networks do not provide any meaningful increase in robustness. The only reason you'd want a separate arbitration network is if replication traffic was expected to be so heavy that election-packets (the heartbeat, actually) would get pushed so far down the stack that it would miss the 10 second timeout.

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