In this blog, I am going to discuss the considerations for configuring a File Share Witness (FSW) for the Failover Cluster hosting your workloads, on a separate Scale-Out File Server cluster. You can find more information on Failover Clustering quorum...

In this blog, I will discuss some common questions pertaining to IPv6 and Windows Server 2012 R2 Failover Clusters. What network protocol does Failover Clustering default to? If both IPv4 and IPv6 are enabled (which is the default configuration...

This is the second blog post in a series about Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). In this post we will go over diagnostics. We assume that reader is familiar with the previous blog post that explains CSV components and different CSV IO modes http://blogs.msdn...

When conducting backups of a Windows Server 2012 or later Failover Cluster using Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV), you may encounter the following event in the System event log: Log Name: System Source: Microsoft-Windows-FailoverClustering Event ID: 5120...

Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) is a layer of abstraction on either the ReFS or NTFS file system (which is used to format the underlying private cloud storage). Just as with a non-CSV volume, at times it may be necessary to run ChkDsk and Defrag on the file...

One of the responsibilities of cluster Network Name resource is to rotate the password of the computer object in Active Directory associated with it. When the Network Name resource is online, it will rotate the password according to domain and local machine...

Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) is the clustered file system for the Microsoft Private cloud, first introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2. In Windows Server 2012, we radically improved the CSV architecture. We presented a deep dive of these architecture improvements...

In this blog we will take a look under the hood of the cluster file system in Windows Server 2012 R2 called Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). This blog post is targeted at developers and ISV’s who are looking to integrate their storage solutions with...

In the System event log you may find an event similar to the following: Event ID 1001 Source: Microsoft-Windows-WER-SystemErrorReporting Description: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000009e (0x0000000000000000...

Add Hyper-V to your server virtualization skillset and improve your career options: Register for this free course, led by Microsoft experts Symon Perriman and Corey Hynes: Server Virtualization w/ Windows Server Hyper-V & System Center Jump Start...

Overview Windows Server Failover Clustering has always monitored the running state of virtual machines and the health state of clustered network and clustered storage. We are furthering the failure detection to include monitoring of the virtual machine...

This blog will discuss the proper process for shutting down an individual node in a Windows Server 2012 R2 Failover Cluster or the entire cluster with all the nodes. Note: While the steps outlined will be specific to Windows Server 2012 R2, the process...

Overview Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) Cache is a feature in Windows Server 2012 and beyond which allows you to allocate system memory (RAM) as a write-through cache. The CSV Cache provides caching of read-only unbuffered I/O. This can improve performance...

If you were not able to make it to TechEd 2013 this year, you can still watch the sessions and learn about the new enhancements coming. Here’s links to the recorded cluster sessions at TechEd 2013: Continuous Availability: Deploying and Managing...

I have seen questions from customers who get a warning in the results of their failover cluster validation that indicates the storage doesn’t support persistent reservations for Storage Spaces. They want to know why they got the warning, what it...

Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) is a clustered file system available in Windows Server 2012 where all nodes in a Windows Server Failover Cluster can simultaneously access a common shared NTFS volume. CSV has a distributed backup infrastructure which enables...

After using the Get-ClusterLog cmdlet to generate the Cluster.log, you may notice the following errors in the cluster log: ERR [RHS] s_RhsRpcCreateResType: ERROR_NOT_READY(21)' because of 'Startup routine for ResType MSMQ returned 21.' WARN [RCM] Failed...

Introducing some concepts: Windows Server 2012 introduced the ability to drain a node, which is sometimes also referred to as Node Maintenance Mode. When you drain a node, the Windows Server Failover Cluster will Pause the node to prevent any new VMs...

In this blog I will discuss how Failover Clustering communicates with cluster resources, along with how clustering detects and recovers when something goes wrong. For the sake of simplicity I will use a Virtual Machine as an example throughout this blog...

In Windows Server 2012, a Failover Cluster can be created in an environment that has access only to a Read Only Domain Controller (RODC) but not a Read Write Domain Controller (RWDC). This deployment model can be useful in a branch office with unreliable...

Windows Server Failover Clustering is a high availability platform that is constantly monitoring the network connections and health of the nodes in a cluster. If a node is not reachable over the network, then recovery action is taken to recover and bring...

BUILD 2012 wrapped up last week. In case you were not able to make it, the sessions are now posted that you can watch. Here is a link to the cluster session. Session: 3-051 Title: Designing applications for highly-availability with Windows Server...

In a previous blog post I explained how VM Monitoring can be configured in Window Server 2012. In this blog I will answer the three most frequently asked questions related to the VM Monitoring feature. 1) Why can I no longer make my Print Server role...

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...

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...