Setting up Windows 2012 Fail over Cluster Server Configuration
NOTE: All Servers are running windows 2012 R2
Disks (iSCSI) – Configuration
Quorum (Q) – Quorum disk
There is a separate instructions how to create iSCSI Disks
You will need at least 2 network interface for the Cluster, in my case I am using
192.168.0.0 /22
172.18.0.0 /16
Windows Cluster IP -- 172.18.0.5.
SQL Cluster IP – 172.18.0.7
MSDTC IP – 172.18.0.6
Failover Cluster Validation
It is always recommends to run the cluster validation before creating the failover cluster, this will validate the software and resources are meet for the cluster.
Open “Failover Cluster Manger” and click on Validate Configuration….
Click Next to continue
Add the server nodes that you are going to add for the failover cluster
Type the server names that are part of the Windows failover cluster
Click Next once you choose all server click next
Select Run all tests and click next
Click next to start the test
If you run in to critical errors you need to rectify them before setting up the cluster
Read the logs carefully if there are any critical errors you need to rectify them before running the configuration and make sure validate pass successfully,
Below is an error that I got during the validation step,
To rectify the above error you need to format the disk and again run the validation tool
There could be some warning messages that of cause you can ignore.
Creating Windows Failover Cluster
Enter \ Browse and add the server node that are going to be part of the Failover Cluster.
Click next once you add all cluster nodes
Type a name for the Windows Cluster. For Example: “winCluster”
Type a IP for the Cluster Network and Cluster IP.
Click next to continue the wizard
Cluster setup has now completed
If the cluster configuration wizard has taken different disk that quorum disk that you allocated you can change it by,
Open Failover Cluster Manager >> right click on cluster >> select Configure Cluster Quorum settings ….
Click Next to continue
Select Advanced quorum confi………..
Select all nodes
Select Configure a disk witness
Select the Quorum disk that you want to use, Example: Disk 3
Click Next to continue
Click Finish to exit
NOTE:
Instead of using Quorum disk you can use Quorum folder share in Windows 2008, 2012 versions, but not in windows 2003.