Ensure that eDirectory is stable before implementing a cluster.

Ensure that you have full Read/Write replicas of the entire eDirectory tree co-located in the data center where you are setting up the cluster.

Ensure that IP addresses are unique.

IP address assignments should be consistently applied for each cluster and its cluster resources.

IP address changes for the cluster and cluster resources should only be made by using the procedure described in Section 8.9.2, Moving a Cluster or Changing IP Addresses of Cluster Nodes and Resources.

IP address changes for cluster resources should always be made on the Protocols page of the iManager Clusters plug-in, not directly in load, unload, and monitor scripts. This is the only way to change the IP address on the virtual NCS:NCP Server object in eDirectory.

Volume IDs used for a cluster resource must be unique across all nodes.

Each cluster node automatically assigns volume ID 0 to volume SYS and volume ID 1 to volume _ADMIN. Cluster-enabled volumes use high volume IDs, starting from 254 in descending order. Volume IDs can be assigned in the cluster load script. You can view the volume IDs assigned on a node by using the ncpcon volumes command.

The Novell Client uses the volume ID to access a volume.

Each node’s configuration must consider the configuration requirements for each of the services it is intended to host.

Create failover matrixes for each cluster resource so that you know what service is supported and which nodes are the preferred nodes for failover.