Ch 11: Network Operating System Fundamentals
A storage area network (SAN) is a high-speed, high-cost network storage solution that
largely replaces locally attached drives on servers. SAN technology allows multiple servers
to access an enormous amount of shared storage that appears as locally attached drives from
the server and user’s perspective. This level of centralized storage offers better reliability and
fault tolerance than traditional storage methods. Additionally, because storage is shared
among several servers, power requirements for maintaining these systems are lower than
those needed to maintain several servers with their own locally attached storage.
44. What is a server cluster and what is the difference between a failover cluster and a load-balancing cluster?
A server cluster is two or more servers configured to operate as a single unit. The most
common types of server clusters are failover clusters and load-balancing clusters. A failover
cluster is used to provide fault tolerance so that if one server fails, the other immediately
takes over its functions with no or little downtime. A load-balancing cluster provides high-
performance computing and data access by spreading the workload among multiple
computers.
Server and Network Fault Tolerance
45. How do you map a shared folder using the command prompt? Provide an example of mapping a drive letter
H: to a share named myshare on a server named myserver.
Open a command prompt and enter the command: net use, followed by a space and then
the drive letter that you want to map it to, followed by a colon. Add another space and then
enter the UNC path of the share to be mapped. For example: net use H:
\\myserver\myshare
The Role of a Client Operating System