Microsoft Fail-over Clustering: Some Prerequisites Before Creating a Cluster
Creating a Microsoft Fail-over Cluster is something that lots of companies does to provide High Availability to services such as File Services, Database (SQL) Services, Virtualization Services, etc. However, there are many things to consider during the planning phase to ensure that the cluster creation is smooth and that the cluster runs robustly. This article will list some important points to consider.
- Make use of the same or similar hardware components as far as possible. Use the same brand of servers and their model series.
- Use dedicated network adapters for each networks assigned to the cluster. Do not use ISCSI network for network communication (Heartbeat, VM Network, Live Migration).
- Provide redundancy to network communication by setting up redundant switches and routers. Make use of teamed network adapters for certain networks. Please note that Microsoft does not support ISCSI network adapters to be teamed. In such cases it is recommended to make use of MPIO (Multi Path I/O).
- Use shared storage from very redundant SAN/NAS with multiple disks. With Windows Server 2012, you can also make use of SMB 3.0 file shared from Windows Server 2012 highly available file server clusters as the shared storage.
- Always check for latest hardware support (drivers, firmware and storage software) with Windows Server OS being used for clustered nodes.
- Restrict access to LUNs from the non-clustered nodes. Make use of LUN masking and zoning to prevent other servers from connecting to the same LUNs being used by the clustered nodes.
- Provide redundancy to storage communication by using more than one host bus adapters (Fibre) or network adapters (ISCSI) together with a suitable multipathing solution supported by Microsoft.
- Provision at least 2 LUNs/Disks for your cluster. One dedicated LUN/Disk for the Quorum (cluster disk witness) and one/multiple LUNs/Disks for the cluster roles which is to be configured as Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs).
- Always use Basic disks formatted with NTFS file system.
- For disk greater than 2 TB, use GUID Partition Table (GPT).
- Always run the Validation Report before creating the cluster to ensure all the requirements for building up the cluster are met and that no errors/warning are detected in the pre-clustered environment. The Validation Report is also like a KEY for Microsoft Support. If you create the cluster without running the Validation Report and the cluster detects any critical issues afterwards, Microsoft will not support you.
- Things to check in BIOS before before installing Hyper-V and creating a Hyper-V cluster:
- Intel Virtualization Technology (Inter VT) or AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) Technology: Enabled
- Data Execution Prevention: Enabled
- Execute Disable Bit (Intel XD bit): Enabled
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