asked on

Windows 2008 Clustering - adding quorum disk

Hi Everyone,

I'm trying to build a cluster of 2 Windows 2008 servers. I'm unable to create a quorum disk, because the configuration wizard tells me I "No storage exists in this cluster." When I select Add Disk, it tells me "No suitable disks for cluster disks were found."

How can I add a suitable disk? I was hoping to just use a mapped drive to a remote share. is this possible to do? Or do I have to attach an iSCSI device?

Thanks,
Theo

Zouleous

It doesn't have to be iSCSI, but it does have to be shared storage. A mapped drive on a remote share will not work (I believe because it's not block-level disk access). There are probably other reasons why.

You could use iSCSI or Fiber channel to attach to the storage. Both physical machines have to be logged in to the storage and be able to access it when you run the wizard I believe.

Sorry I don't talk with 100% confidence because I've only read about it and never done it. This is pretty new to me too.

kevinhsieh

You need to ise iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or external SAS.

Here are the hardware and software requirements for a failover cluster.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd197454(WS.10).aspx

Member_2_231077

You can add a file share witness instead to maintain a quorum, see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2010/06/15/10024985.aspx for example. However to be much use the cluster normally still needs block level shared storage, Exchange 2003 shared storage cluster is the only one I can think of that could be done with just CIFS/SMB shared storage.

Theodosios

ASKER

Okay, I will try that file share witness. This is just a test environment for now.

The 2 clustered servers have 2 nics each, basically 2 separate subnets, and this shows up fine in the Server Manager tree under Failover Cluster Manager.
MS's documentation says something about one of the subnets having exclusive access to the shared storage only? How does that work?

Also, one of the servers being clustered is a virtual machine, does that make any difference?

Thanks,

Theo.

kevinhsieh

You can cluster VMs. What service(s) are you trying to put into the cluster? Then we can better go forward after we know what you are trying to accomplish.

Theodosios

ASKER

Both Windows 2008 R2 servers (1 physical, one virtual) are running VMware's vCentre Management 4.1 software. It manages many remote virtual machines. So if one goes down, need to make sure the other one in the cluster can take over immediately. I understand DFS is used to keep the files synched?

Thanks,

Theo

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Member_2_231077

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Theodosios

ASKER

Thanks a lot, I will check that out.

Theo