Part 2- 2 NODE FAILOVER CLUSTER,WINDOWS 2012 RC

In Part1 went over setting up iSCSI SAN, today i will go over enabling Failover cluster feature in Windows 2012 RC and build a 2 Node Cluster using the shared iSCSI disk's.

Lab:

Adding Failover Manager Feature and iSCSI virtual disk to Primary Server:

Enabling Failover Feature:

Click on Manage and select ADD Roles and Features...

Click Role-based or feature and click next...

click next...

Click Application Serve role and click next...

Enable Failover clustering, a window pops up requesting to add required Features, click Add and then click next....

Note: MULTIPATH I/O Feature needs to be enabled if you have more then 1 path to disk's.

At the end of the article I will add the steps required.

read through and click next...

Add any services if you need or else just click next...

(Note: By default .Net Framework 4.5 is already enabled and installed during the Windows 2012 RC install)

Enable the restart option if needed and click Install...(Note: Enabling Failover Feature does't require rebooting so this option can be skipped).

Successfully enable the Failover feature ,click close...

Adding the Virtual Disk :

Open Server Manager and click Tools...

Click iSCSI initiator..

Provide the IP address or Name of the Target iSCSI server and click Quick Connect..

Quick connect window pops up, click on all the inactive disks and say connect..

After all the disk are connected, click Done...

Click OK..

Adding Failover Manager Feature and iSCSI virtual disk to Secondary Server:

Follow all the steps same as Primary server .

So we successfully added the disk and connected.

Initializing the Disk and Formatting:

Note: If you are working on a Failover cluster the following steps needs to be performed only on a Single Node of the cluster.

Following Steps are performed on the Node fooprimary:

Click Tools in Server Manager and Click Computer Management....

Click on Disk Management...

You will see 2 disk's which we added using iSCSI initiator as Unknown and offline status.

Right click on each disk and say Online.

Right click on disk and say Initialize Disk...

check both the disk and click ok...

now you will see Disk are online and Unallocated...

right click on select New Simple Volume...

click next...

assign a drive letter and click next....

provide a Volume label and click next..

click Finish and perform the same steps for the other disk...

Now you see both disks are online and healthy...

Lets login to Node 2 foosecondary:

Open Computer Management and click Disk Management...

Note: Disk is offline and not with unknown status.

Right click and bring the disk online

You will notice that disk are online with assigned drive letters and volume name.

The above screen shot shows that both servers can see the disk.

Put the disk offline on both the Nodes and we will go over Configuring Failover Manager.

FAILOVER MANAGER CONFIGURATION:

Open Server Manager on any Node.

Select tools and click Failover cluster Manger.

Note: I am logged in on Primary Node(FOOPRIMARY) with domain Administrative rights.

Click Validate configuration...

click next...

Add all the nodes and click next..

select Run all tests.. and click next....

click next...

Make sure all the testing completes with no errors.

If you want to begin with Cluster Creation you can leave the Check box and click Finish it will start the cluster creation wizard. If not then disable the check box and you can click the create cluster from

Failover cluster Manager.

Add all the servers that needs to be part of cluster and click next...

Provide a Cluster Name and IP address and click next...

Note: Before you can click next, make sure you are either domain administrator or pre populate the cluster name computer object.

Please refer to this technet article which explains in depth.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731002(v=ws.10).aspx

In windows 2008 it was not possible to provide an OU container fort the cluster Name object to be created, it always gets created in Computer's OU,but now in Windows 2012 you can provide the LDAP path and it will create in the required OU.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/03/30/10289577.aspx

Note: Previous version all storage are added by default, but now you can decided if you need or not.

Leave the Check box to add all storage to Cluster and click next...

Click Finish...

Quorum Settings:

when creating cluster, depending on the number of Nodes it automatically picks the correct quorum settings and disk.

If you feel anything needs to be changed , please go to change under configure cluster quorum settings...

We have successfully created the Cluster, let's test the Failover:

Active Node before Failover:

Active Node after Failover:

We have successfully tested the Failover.

Note: The default cluster group was missing in Failover Manager in Windows 2008 and you had to use either cluster.exe or power shell to move cluster group.In Windows 2012 they have added the cluster group to GUI.Right click on Cluster name and you have option to move to best possible Nodes.

Optional Steps:

If you have more then 1 path to iSCSI disk's then you need to follow the below steps after you connected the disk using iSCSI initiator.

Adding iSCSI support to MPIO:

Open Server Manager and click Tools