This blog outlines the sequence of steps to configure a Clustered Storage Space in Windows Server 2012 using the Failover Cluster Manager or Windows PowerShell®. You can learn more about Storage Spaces here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012...

Hi cluster fans, By now you have probably heard of the new architectural innovation being brought to Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 R2 known as Cluster Shared Volumes, or CSV. CSV functions as a distributed-access file system optimized...

So they asked me to write for a blog. Well, I’m new here, and what can a new guy write about? The basics! But the target audience for this blog is not the faint of heart, so, let’s start with a NEW basic thing for everybody: “Creating a Cluster in Windows...

The Windows Server 2012 Cluster Migration Wizard is a powerful and time-saving tool that copies cluster roles from a source cluster to a target cluster. Although the Cluster Migration Wizard can move almost any clustered workload to Windows Server 2012...

Hi Cluster Fans, In Windows Server 2008 R2 (“R2”) we are introducing PowerShell as the new scripting language for clustering technologies. PowerShell with Failover Clustering will replace Cluster.exe and the Windows Server 2008 R2 release will be the...

Hi cluster fans, In Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Clustering we have incorporated a significant architectural innovation called Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV), which functions as a distributed-access file system optimized for Hyper-V. This means that...

Since Failover Clustering traditionally requires shared storage (you could also use hardware or software replication between nodes), we get a lot of questions about which shared storage types we support. Windows Server Failover Clustering has a very flexible...

Hi Cluster Fans, In this post I will discuss a 2008 and 2008 R2 deployment issue which is sometimes seen, and how to get around it. Let’s say you want to Validate a server, create a cluster or add a node to a cluster. We have a requirement that...

Hi cluster fans, Many of you ask about the cheapest way to deploy your own cluster. We all know that the hardware requirements are very flexible, so long as the components have a Windows Server logo and the complete solutions passes Validate ( support...

Hi Cluster Fans, Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) is now available for download on the web! This blog post will walk you through performing a “rolling upgrade” from Windows Server 2008 RTM to Windows Server 2008 SP2. A rolling upgrade allows...

Hi cluster fans, Our partners on the Exchange and Hyper-V team have recently published some great resources to improve your high-availability knowledge. Hyper-V: Free Training Microsoft is offering some free training for Hyper-V which includes...

With Windows Server 2008 (and R2) Failover Clustering you can make almost anything highly-available. This does not only include programs and applications, but you can make any service running on the cluster highly available – even if it is custom or from...

Windows Server 2008 (and R2) Failover Clustering supports virtually every workload which comes with Windows Server, however there are many custom and 3 rd party applications which take advantage of our infrastructure to provide high-availability. Additionally...

Hi cluster fans, The Cluster Program Management team recently returned from one of our biggest industry events and the second most popular question was “What is the best way to deploy Hyper-V with Failover Clustering?” (The most popular question...

Hi Cluster Fans, We’ve been seeing an increasing number of questions about a specific error in Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering using the ‘Validate a Configuration’ Wizard (‘Validate’). This error is fairly common and very easy to fix and...

When running NLB as a Virtual Machine (VM) guest using Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V you need to be aware of some specific configurations settings in Hyper-V host prior to configuring NLB. In Hyper-V, the VM host prevents dynamic MAC address...

Hi Cluster Fans, Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2008 no longer supports the traditional “rolling upgrade” which you may be familiar with from Windows Server 2003. This has given the impression that you will not be able to reuse your hardware...

You may have noticed that in Windows Server 2008 that the "Share Subdirectories" option for file shares on a Failover Cluster has been removed...why would we do that? First off, let's take a stroll down memory lane and talk about the history of this...

Windows Server Failover Clustering logs information about cluster activities including normal operations like updates between nodes as well as errors and warnings related to problems that occurred on the cluster in a text file called cluster.log . The...

Hi NLB users, 4/27/2009 - UPDATE: The System Center Operations Manager 2007 NLB Management Pack described below has been released. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=dc17e093-bdd7-4cb3-9981-853776ed90be&displaylang=en...

Hi Cluster fans, [1/13/2010] UPDATE: This issue has been fixed in Windows Server 2008 R2. All Hotfixes should now correctly return the KB number. If you still see this issue on a 2008 R2 cluster, please let us know by clicking the ‘Email’ link in...

Windows Server 2012 introduces the ability to encrypt Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) using BitLocker®. You can learn more about BitLocker in Windows Server 2012 here . Data on a lost or stolen storage is vulnerable to unauthorized access, either...

Hi Cluster PowerShell script writers, We regularly get asked about how to find the free disk space on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). In this blog, I will show you how to do this with PowerShell. Here are the CSV volumes in my cluster. Note...

Hi Cluster Fans, Amongst the long list of features that is being added in Windows Server R2, Clustering team is also providing a set of PowerShell cmdlets (“command-lets”) to manage your Failover Cluster. Hopefully this is not news for most cluster...

Hi, A lot of people have asked about setting up NLB clusters on virtual machines. This is possible. But, there a few things to keep in mind. If you’re trying to create NLB clusters using Virtual Server Virtual Machines, before designing your...