Create Failover Cluster

This topic describes how to create a failover cluster.

Before you begin

Install Failover Clustering Feature

About this task

You can perform these steps on either Node1 or Node2. Suppose you perform these steps on Node1, they are automatically applied to Node2.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the server node.
  2. Go to Start > Administrative Tools > Failover Cluster Manager.
  3. In Failover Cluster Manager, select Validate a Configuration.
    Before starting to create a cluster of nodes, you should validate whether the nodes that you are adding to the cluster are compatible with the cluster hardware requirement. For more information, refer to Microsoft documentation.
  4. Complete Validate a Configuration Wizard with these options:
    Section What To Do
    Before You Begin Skip to the next section.
    Select Servers or a Cluster Browse and locate the nodes you want to add to the cluster.

    For example, confighubnode1.cluster.ge.com and confighubnode2.cluster.ge.com

    For resolving server related issues, see Troubleshooting.
    Testing Options Select Run all tests (recommended).
    Confirmation Review the list of tests run on the selected servers. The number of tests run are based on the roles installed on the server nodes.
    Validating This process may take several minutes depending on your network infrastructure, and the number of server nodes selected for validation.
    Summary
    1. Select View Report.
    2. Review Failover Cluster Validation Report and fix any failed validations. You can ignore expected warnings. The validation report should be free of any errors, otherwise the cluster setup will not be successful.
    3. Select Finish.
  5. In Failover Cluster Manager, select Create a Cluster.
  6. Complete Create Cluster Wizard using these options:
    Section What To Do
    Before You Begin Skip to the next section.
    Select Servers Nodes were already added during validating the configuration process. Skip to the next section.
    Validation Warning Select No. We already validated the nodes in the previous steps.
    Access Point for Administering the Cluster Enter a unique name for your cluster.
    Confirmation This screen lists the settings to be applied to your new cluster. Select the check box for Add all eligible storage to the cluster. The system will now try to assign any storage it can find.
    Creating New Cluster This process may take a while as there are several checks that must be run, and tests that are conducted while the system is configured.
    Note: You may receive node cleanup failed errors at this stage (not detected during validation stage). Run the following command in all the cluster nodes, and then attempt to create the cluster. You need to execute this command in the administrative mode of Windows power shell.
    > Clear-ClusterNode -Name confihubnode1.cluster.ge.com -Force
    Summary When the process is complete, select Finish.

Results

After completing the steps in this topic, a new cluster is created in your network domain.

To verify that the cluster is configured correctly, navigate to Nodes in the Failover Cluster Manager. Check that all nodes in the cluster are online. If they are not, go to the server that is offline, and bring the system online to join the cluster.

Troubleshooting Errors:
While adding the cluster nodes, if you get the above error, you need to do the following and attempt to add the clusters again:
  • Disable the firewall on both the nodes.
  • Add DNS name in the hosts.conf file.

What to do next

Create Role