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Thanks Paul,<br />
<br />
in my current environment I do not have iSCSI SAN or Fibre Channel yet.<br />
<br />
SO is there any alternative to deploy MSCS without RDM at any compatibility mode ?
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<div>
Yes, this is for a test environment / staging area to mimics production.
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I would agree with the cluster in a box but not for production. &nbsp;You will need a shared storage solution (ISCSI, SAS, FC) SAN to deploy this or you can use SQL 2014 and availability groups to configure an environment without the need of MCSC
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Hm...,<br />
<br />
I'm trying to install SQL 2014 to test the Availability Group but somehow it is failed.<br />
<br />
See: <a href="http://filedb.experts-exchange.com/incoming/2016/01_w04/1072401/Capture.JPG" rel="ugc">http://filedb.experts-exchange.com/incoming/2016/01_w04/1072401/Capture.JPG</a><br />
<br />
Hence I ask this question.<br />
<br />
Do I need to create MSCS first ?
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if this is just test, Cluster in a Box, BUT DO NOT PUT into Production!
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<div>
Guys,<br />
<br />
What I need is 180 days testing for Cluster in A box, so I guess I do not need shared storage here.<br />
<br />
Licensing wise, I do not need to worry because the trial is not costing me anything.
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Correct, but I stress again, to not carry forward into Production, we will be watching!
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now we have the Experts Exchange version of big brother, nice going Andrew
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:-o<br />
<br />
no no I won't be for sure. Because like you said before it is too expensive.
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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
People,<br />
<br />
I need to know how can I deploy 2 Node MSCS cluster VMs in VMware ESXi ?<br />
<br />
Do I need to have SAN / Shared Storage or Physical RDM LUN to begin ?<br />
Do I need to assign Heart Beat Network for both VMs with non-routable IP address (within same vSwitch) ?<br />
<br />
Googling around I found <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/05/01/10299698.aspx" rel="ugc">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/05/01/10299698.aspx</a>&nbsp;but it doesn't mention anything for VMware.
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</div>


People,

I need to know how can I deploy 2 Node MSCS cluster VMs in VMware ESXi ?

Do I need to have SAN / Shared Storage or Physical RDM LUN to begin ?
Do I need to assign Heart Beat Network for both VMs with non-routable IP address (within same vSwitch) ?

Googling around I found http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/05/01/10299698.aspx but it doesn't mention anything for VMware.

Creating Windows Server 2012 R2 MSCS on VMware ESXi ?

VMware, a software company founded in 1998,  was one of the first commercially successful companies to offer x86 virtualization. The storage company EMC purchased VMware in 1994. Dell Technologies acquired EMC in 2016. VMware’s parent company is now Dell Technologies.

VMware has many software products that run on desktops, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS, which allows the virtualizing of the x86 architecture.  Its enterprise software hypervisor for servers, VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), is a bare-metal hypervisor that runs directly on the server hardware and does not require an additional underlying operating system.

VMware

Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8 and the successor to Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Server 2012 is the first version of Windows Server to have no support for Itanium-based computers since Windows NT 4.0. Windows Server 2012, now in its second release (Windows Server 2012 Release 2) includes Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter, and does not support IA-32 or IA-64 processors.

Windows Server 2012

The Microsoft Server topic includes all of the legacy versions of the operating system, including the Windows NT 3.1, NT 3.5, NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 and Windows Home Server versions.