AppFabric setup in a domain

Question

So I am a little confused by reading the documents.

I want to setup AppFabric caching and hosting. Can I do the following?

DC

SQL Server

AppFabric1

AppFabric2

All these computers are joined to the DC. I want to be able to have AppFabric1 be the mainhost but also part of the cache cluster? What about AppFabric2? or AppFabricX? How can I make them part of the cache cluster? Do I have to make AppFabric1 and AppFabric2 configured in Windows as part of a cluster (i.e setup the entire environment as a cluster)?

Can I install AppFabric independently on AppFabric1 and 2 and have them cluster together and "make it work"? If so - how?

I see documentation about setting it up in a webfarm but also a workgroup... and that's it. nothing about computers joined to a domain.

Answer 1

I want to setup AppFabric caching and hosting.

Caching and Hosting are two totaly different things and generally don't share the same use cases.

AppFabric Caching provides an in-memory, distributed cache platform for Windows Server, previously named Velocity. The cache cluster is a collection of one or more instances of the Caching Service working together. You can easily add new cache host without restarting the cluster in the "storage location" (xml or sql server).

Can I install AppFabric independently on AppFabric1 and 2 and have them cluster together and "make it work"? If so - how?

Don't worry... this can be done easily during installation. In addition, there are powerfull PS module to to the same thing.

AppFabric Hosting enhance the hosting of WCF and Workflow Foundation services in WAS (autostart, monitoring of hosted services, workflow persistence, ...). There is no cluster here and basically you just have to configure to monitoring/persistence DB for each server.

Just try it !

Answer 2

When you are adding the second node in the AppFabric cluster, make sure to choose the option Join Cluster (instead of New Cluster) and point to the path of the share where you stored the configuration (assuming that you used FILE SHARE to store the configuration of the cluster). The share that you used should be accessible from Appfabric2.