Question : Configuring a Cluster - and a simple one at that!

Folks, fellows, experts and friends!
Simple question I am sure, I am adding 2 servers to a simple cluster to load balance our SMTP service as it's use is increasing - they are R5 servers, have been added to a cluster in the NAB, replicas of all required address books added and on reading through the various articles on EE, I have added the required ini settings to the servers in the cluster !

So - all being well - I started the server, it's now looking for cladmin.exe such that the cluster part of the servers kicks in I guess!

My questions:

When is this file installed - the 5.0.13 disk used to install (the MAIL server) did not install it?
Does it need to be on the other server in the custer too? (have looked there and it's not there either!)

Answer on a post card, or here at least ;-)
Beers,
Kenny

Answer : Configuring a Cluster - and a simple one at that!

This is what you need to do...

    *   Invent a new DNS name, say, internal.smtp.phippsy
    *   Create two records with this name
    *   Point one of these records and one of the two servers, and the other record at the other server
    *   Have all your internal SMTP senders point to internal.smtp.phippsy

Now, they will certainly round-robin load balance, and in the event of a server failure, depending on how TCP/IP works on each of the senders, they will either automatically failover, or, at worst, you will have to temporarily change the two DNS records to point to the single functioning box.

A better, but more expensive solution, is to install a hardware load balancer, create a virtual IP for internal.smtp.phippsy pointing at the load balanacer, which then monitors and directs traffix to the two real IPs.