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Windows Server Failover Clustering

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39 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Windows Server Failover Clustering?

Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) is a group of independent servers that work together to increase application and service availability.

Categories & Use Cases

Reviews

What users are saying about Windows Server Failover Clustering.
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Windows Server Failover Cluster its up to the task

Incentivized
Luiz Eduardo GarciaView profile
System Administrator in Information Technology at JET e-business (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Windows Server Failover Clustering as a solution for high availability for many porpouses: Virtual Machines, Network File Sharing and SQL Server Instances. We have dedicated clusters for Virtual Machines and Network File Share, and another one for SQL Server Instances. For the Virtual Machines, we use the live migration feature to put a node in maintence mode, without take any Virtual Machine off.

Pros

  • Virtual Machines live migration
  • Network File Share
  • SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances
  • DHCP Service
  • File Server

Cons

  • Support for windows services appplications
  • Disk management
  • Other Windows forms applications

Return on Investment

  • High availablity of applications
  • Maintence without applications downtime
  • Centralized management for virtual machines

Usability

Other Software Used

Microsoft SQL Server, Portainer, Redis Software, Apache Solr, NGINX, Veeam ONE, NAKIVO Backup & Replication, pfSense

Windows Server Failover Clustering

Incentivized
Verified User
Professional in Information Technology (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Windows Server Failover Clustering primarily in hyperv clusters with physical servers but also in some cases in hyperv clusters with virtual servers (nested virtualization in lab environments). Also i use Windows Server Failover Clustering in SQL Server virtual clustering (guest clustering). The major business problems addressed are high availability and agility in hosting business workloads in a reliable manner.

Pros

  • HyperV live migration
  • HyperV storage migration
  • Virtual machine failover

Cons

  • Cluster-aware updating seems to not be consistent in all cases
  • Hardware supportability matrix can be expanded to cover more hardware
  • Some specialized use cases can only be carried out via Powershell only

Return on Investment

  • Reduced total cost of ownership by 15% after consolidating standalone servers into 1 cluster
  • Increased return on investment by 20% after utilizing the new HyperV cluster with virtualized workloads
  • Increased productivity and overall infrastructure availability by 30%

Usability

Other Software Used

Azure Arc, Azure App Service, Azure Application Gateway, Azure AI Studio

Windows Failover Clustering, one of the best features available in Windows Server OS!!

Incentivized
Edwin LabiruaView profile
Senior Infrastructure Engineer in Information Technology at Leviton Manufacturing Inc. (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilized Windows Server Failover Clustering as an integral part of a MS SQL cluster setup. We utilized it for almost zero downtime on our Microsoft SQL serving our on prem Sharepoint implementations, as well as several critical IT infrastructure systems that need a SQL database back end. This allows us to perform maintenance and patching without affecting the applications that use the SQL server. It's deployed on a active passive setup. We also set up a test Hyper-V high availability cluster.

Pros

  • It allows us to perform maintenance and patching on the passive node without having to shutdown the database and incurring downtime.
  • We are able to repair a failed server but failing the database over if there is a hardware failure on the active node. Minimizing downtime on the database.
  • It provides an automated recovery when there is failure without IT intervention when there is an issue.

Cons

  • The setup of the Windows Server Failover Clustering is complex, requiring different networks and multiple network cards.
  • Better integration between the Windows Failover clustering and Hyper-V. Unlike VMWare you have to make changes to two places instead of just one panel.
  • I wish there was a web portal to manage the cluster. Instead you have to remote desktop into the VIP address and go to the Cluster manager.

Most Important Features

  • One of the most important features in the high availability of the SQL cluster ensuring we have minimum downtime.
  • The automatic fail over feature. Making sure the database is always up when a failure occurs on the hardware level.
  • The ease of managing the resource in the Failover clustering manager.

Return on Investment

  • A positive impact is that we are able to setup the Windows Server Failover Clustering with just the Standard Windows server and SQL license.
  • We have hardware redundancy on our SQL server so we won't have to worry about hardware failures on maintenance windows. We can work on the passive node while the database is up on the active node.
  • We were able to setup a virtualization cluster without having to purchase additional licenses for a test instance.
  • We are able to utilize MS SQL for some of our more critical infrastructure because of the Windows Failover clustering, since the database was always up as long as one node was up.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle Real Application Clusters

Other Software Used

SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM), ManageEngine ADAudit Plus, ManageEngine Remote Access Plus, VMware vCenter Server, Cohesity DataProtect

Clustering at its best

Incentivized
Muhammad Hassan Khan
Deputy Manager in Information Technology at Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Failover Priority setting , i.e. High, medium , low.
  • online services movement.
  • Online data movement across clusters.
  • No downtime,
  • Easy role movement

Cons

  • Quorum settings should be improved
  • San environment should be improved
  • Logging of Cluster events should be improved

Most Important Features

  • SQL Server Roles deployment
  • SQL Server databases on different disks
  • Nodes on different Blade servers

Return on Investment

  • Zero Downtime
  • Asynchronous updates
  • Roles deployment

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Server

Other Software Used

IDERA SQL Diagnostic Manager for SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Power BI

Simple and out of the box

Incentivized
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

  • Easy to use
  • Out of the box
  • Documentation is readily available

Cons

  • Include storage spaces as part of the same feature set along with storage tiering

Most Important Features

  • Failover
  • Ease of use

Return on Investment

  • No need to invest in a third part product
  • Support and documentation is everywhere
  • The learning curve is not steep and is very quick

Alternatives Considered

VMware vCenter Server

Other Software Used

StarWind Virtual SAN