Set up Cluster

This article provides steps and information related to setting up a Synology CIFS Scale-out Cluster.

Before You Start

Please see the following notes:

Setting up CIFS Scale-out Cluster

Once all of the servers have been joined to the CMS Host, you can follow the instructions below to set up the CIFS Scale-out Cluster.

To set up a new cluster:

  1. Go to CMS > Cluster Overview and click Cluster Settings.
  2. A setup wizard appears, prompting you to complete the following steps:
    1. Create Cluster Volume: Create a cluster volume on the storage servers for storing data.
    2. Select Computing Server: Computing servers are used for processing file access requests issued by clients. All servers must belong to the same domain/LDAP, so you need to enter the address and login credentials of your domain/LDAP server. If you don't have a domain/LDAP server, you can download and install Synology's Directory Server package in order to set up your own LDAP server.
    3. Setup Clustered CIFS Service: You can access the clustered CIFS service via a unified NetBIOS name or CIFS server IP address of your choosing.
    4. Create Cluster Share: Create a shared folder on top of cluster volume for organizing and sharing data.

Computing Server Failover

If a computing server encounters an error or malfunctions, another available computing server should takes over CIFS service in order to prevent service downtime. This process is called "failover."

To enable failover for computing servers, you should set up the Cluster CIFS Service IP address option. When enabled, if a computing server encounters an error or malfunctions, the service sessions that are accessed through the Cluster Service IP Address shall be redirected to another available computing server, thus providing failover and decreasing service downtime.

To set up Cluster CIFS Service IP Address:

  1. Go to CMS > Cluster Overview > Cluster Settings > Setup Clustered CIFS Service. Then click Next.
  2. Tick the box marked Enable cluster CIFS service IP addresses.
  3. Click Add to add an appropriate number of IP addresses depending on the number of computing servers.
  4. Enter the desired IP address and subnet mask.
  5. After completing the setup wizard, you should be able to access the clustered CIFS service by using Cluster CIFS Service IP address.

Computing Server Load Balancing

After your cluster is running, we recommend setting up load balancing for the computing servers. Because all computing servers handle CIFS service concurrently, load balancing is necessary in order to distribute file access requests across all computing servers. There are two types of load balancing:

Round robin can be configured on the DNS server in your environment. If you don't have a DNS server in your environment, you can install Synology's DNS Server package and configure your DNS resource record.

To set up round robin DNS:

  1. Install and set up DNS Server according to this tutorial.
  2. Go to the Zones page, select a master zone, and click Edit > Resource Record.
  3. Click Create > A Type. Enter a hostname (e.g. if your cluster name and FQDN is [Your Hostname].[Your Domain Name], then the hostname is cluster.synology.com). Then enter the IP address of one of your computing servers or the Cluster Service IP Address.
  4. Repeat the step above until all computing server are included in the A record. Please note, the hostname must be identical for every A record for computing servers.
  5. Point your computer to the newly configured DNS server. You should be able to access the clustered CIFS server by using the FQDN (e.g. cluster.synology.com).

Expand Existing Cluster with New Synology NAS

In order to increase the computational and storage resource of the cluster, you might wish to expand the cluster by adding additional servers. You can quickly and easily add new servers to an existing cluster by following the instructions below.

To expand the cluster with uninstalled Synology NAS servers:

  1. Go to CMS > Server > Add.
  2. Select Expand existing cluster with new servers.
  3. Follow the instructions of the wizard to finish.