The Design and Architecture of the Microsoft Cluster Service -- A Practical Approach to High-Availability and Scalability

TL;DR

This paper details the architecture and design decisions of Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS), focusing on its high-availability, scalability features, and how it supports fault-tolerant applications on Windows NT.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive description of MSCS architecture, design choices, and application integration, highlighting practical approaches to high-availability and scalability.

Findings

MSCS enables fault-tolerance for server applications.

Scalability is achieved through a node and application management system.

Features are added to simplify fault-tolerant application development.

Abstract

Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) extends the Win-dows NT operating system to support high-availability services. The goal is to offer an execution environment where off-the-shelf server applications can continue to operate, even in the presence of node failures. Later ver-sions of MSCS will provide scalability via a node and application management system that allows applications to scale to hundreds of nodes. This paper provides a de-tailed description of the MSCS architecture and the de-sign decisions that have driven the implementation of the service. The paper also describes how some major appli-cations use the MSCS features, and describes features added to make it easier to implement and manage fault-tolerant applications on MSCS.