In a server cluster, common resources are managed and shared between the servers, or nodes, in the cluster. As in a non-clustered environment, each node has a copy of the operating system, the services and the applications it will run, and it owns and manages physical and virtual devices local to the system. The nodes also share resources, such as network addresses, disks, file shares, etc. The Microsoft® Server Cluster Service (MSCS) manages these shared resources, organizing them into groups. MSCS permits only one node to own and manage a group at a time.

For most server clusters, the application data is stored on disks shared in the cluster. Frequently, the overall performance of the node which owns the application group is constrained by access to this data. By placing temporary disk data in a RAM disk, access to the data is accelerated, resulting in higher system throughput.

In cluster environments, a single RAM disk can be configured as a cluster resource. The RAM disk is integrated seamlessly into the cluster environment through the use of a proprietary cluster resource DLL. When the RAM disk cluster resource is brought online, the DLL mounts the RAM disk at a mount point on a shared disk. When taken offline, the RAM disk is dismounted from the mount point. In this way, the RAM disk, although a local resource, is made available to the cluster application hosted on the local node.