caching shared folders within cluster environment

[jatkinson]

We have two W2k servers setup within a cluster with the 2nd server (Node2) running fileprint resources. Within the event viewer I can see a number of warnings that offline caching of shares shouldn't be set up within a cluster environment. I have therefore gone into the sharing tab on a folders properties and disabled caching.

I have noticed though that a problem we have is that when a failover occurs (i.e fileprint resources fail to Node1), any users who are in documents, spreadsheets etc lose their work.

Ideally I would like to use offline synchronisation, in much the same way as a workstation would connect to an individual server with shares. The user would therefore have a local 'cached' copy of the document/spreadsheet if necessary.

Why does the event viewer tell me that we can't have caching enabled in a cluster environment and how can we therefore protect our users documents/spreadsheets if the resources (shared drives) failover??

 

[Castor66]

You shouldn't have caching enabled on the cluster nodes but you should use offline folders on the client nodes. Then they will only synchronise on close or whenever you have the client set up to do it. It's not a cluster issue, it's a client issue.

 

[jatkinson]

Thanks Castor,

So I need to turn offline folders on on the clients say via Group Policy and then in case of failover in future any open documents will store offline until the shares come back up on the other node. Is that correct?

Also, do you know why, say after a failover the shares on each Node are enabled for caching again? It seems to default that way which seems odd when the server then starts telling you it shouldn't, is there a way to permenantly turn it off?

Thanks for you assistance.