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Hi everyone,
1- it's always good to know how to install/configure and familiarize yourself with the
clustering environment
2- Windows 2012 has the ability now to be an iSCSI server. This allows you to have a
whole new level of designing an architecture. in the past you had to go through 3rd
parties (VMware etc) to assign iSCSI disks/LUNs etc. now you can do it in a pure
windows environment.
Please note that this documentation illustrates steps taken by me and what I have
encountered as steps to get the objectives done. It is possible that your experience
would be slightly different.
I didn't include screenshots otherwise each How-To will take 20 pages.lol but I
described everything with as much detail as possible.
Objective:
Pre-requisites:
Navigate to File and Storage Services File and iSCSI Services iSCSI Target
Server.
When the pop up window with the features to add arrives, click on Add Features.
Click on the To create iSCSI virtual disk, start the New iSCSI Virtual Disk Wizard.
Select the HDD (It needs to be NTFS formatted and given a Drive Letter)
Click Add.
In Select a Method to Identify the initiator, in the Query Initiator Computer for ID
specify the servers allowed to use this IQN. Click OK, and then Next.
(Please note that you can specify only one server at a time. so redo this step for
every server you wish to add).
In the Enable Authentication section, click on Next. (If you wish to specify
authentication method, feel free).
*Use this method to create also the Quorum disk of the Cluster. Minimal size.*
2. Configuring Windows 2012 Failover Cluster.
Before proceeding with the installation and configuration of the Failover Cluster, you
need to map the new drive(s) to the node servers.
(This service is stopped by default". when the alert comes, activate it.)
in the Targets tab, in the Target text box, put the hostname of the File Server and
click Quick Connect.
As soon as the connection is made, a pop-up will spear to confirm. Click Done.
The status of the IQN listed on the Targets tab will be marked as Connected.
** If there are many IQN connections available, you need to select the appropriate
one and select Connect then Done. **
Right-click on the new disk and select Online, then right-click again and select
Initialize.
** repeat these steps on all servers dedicated as "Nodes" in the Failover Cluster.
except the Disk management steps. this can be done only once). **
2.3.1 Validation
Open Failover Cluster Manager (Server Manager --> Tools) and click on Validate
Configuration.
Click Next.
Select all the Server nodes which will be part of the cluster. Click on Next.
Choose Run all tests and click Next until the tests begin.
When finished, you will see the message Testing has completed successfully. The
configuration appears to be suitable for clustering. Ensure the option Create a
cluster now using the validated nodes is checked and click Finish.
* Run these steps only on one cluster. it's not necessary to run it again.
Click Finish.
* If the checkbox to import the disks is selected, you can ignore step 2.4.1
When the cluster is properly installed and configured, a new Computer Account will
be created in the AD. In order for the cluster to be fully user friendly and avoir doing
some manual tasks, we need to give that computer name the proper permissions to
create any further computer objects, roles, etc. which depend on that specific
cluster.
Go to Active Directory Users and Computers (Be sure that Advanced Features are
enabled)
Right-click on the OU/Container inwhich you would like the cluster to create the
Computer Objects and select Properties.
Add the Computer Account of the Cluster (Example CL-VIP$) and click OK.
Click on Advanced.
The only thing left to do in order to have a complete and functional cluster is to:
Once you added all the disks, click on a disk. You will see the Drive Letter associated
with it. If you'd like to change the letter, do the following:
For those unfamiliar with the term Quorum (A.K.A Witness), here is a brief
explanation. For a cluster be still up and functioning, you need to have more than
50% up. Which means an odd number. So if you have 3 nodes in a cluster, you don't
need a quorum. but if your number of nodes is even, you need a quorum so it will
act as a tie-breaker.
There are 4 options when configuring a quorum, the 2 options that are
easy/practical to use are:
Disk Witness
In the Failover Clustering tool, on the left pane, Right-click on the cluster FQDN.
Choose the disk dedicated as a Quorum and click on Next until the end.