Upgrade 3-Node 2016 Microsoft Failover Cluster to 2022 (Hyper-V)

Question

Hello,

I am upgrading current 3-node 2016 cluster to 2022 by adding new windows server 2022 physical servers to the existing cluster. I'll update the cluster functional level afterward. I did upgrade another 2-node 2016 cluster to 2019 cluster successfully. Can windows server 2022 be added to existing 2016 cluster?

Note: this is a Hyper-V cluster.

Thank You
Raed

Answer 1

Hi,

The answer is yes based on the Microsoft article below talking about Cluster upgrade from to Windows 2019 and 2022:

cluster-operating-system-rolling-upgrade

Please don't forget to mark helpful reply as answer

Answer 2

Thank you Thameur-BOURBITA for the article!

The article does not state skipping a version when upgrading from Microsoft (Hyper-V) failover cluster 2016 to 2022 (skipping 2019).
I can not find articles on companies upgraded their Microsoft failover cluster from 2016 to 2022.

I am asking because it's failing to add a new Windows server 2022 to the existing Microsoft failover cluster 2016.

Errors I get is like:

the computer is joined to a cluster.
Unable to add cluster nodes - Cluster service did not reach the running state. The Error code is 0x5b4.

Answer 3

Hi Thameur-BOURBITA,

I ended up migrating the Failover cluster from version 2016 to version 2019.

My goal was to upgrade to 2022. I will come back in the near future to try and upgrade from failover cluster version 2019 to 2022. In this case, I have to use the network configuration called "Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) instead of NIC Teaming, which is no longer supported by 2022 Hyper-V.

Thank You for the help.

Raed

Answer 4

Hi,

I think that the Cluster OS rolling upgrade process allow up 1 version increase at a time such as from Server 2016 to Server 2019 or Server 2019 to Server 2022 like the process of upgrade in-place.
You can upgrade from windows 2016 directly to Windows 2022 and mentioned in the article in my previous answer.
Did you have the same error when you try to upgrade from Windows 2016 to windows 2019 ?

Please don't forget to mark helpful reply as answer

Answer 5

Hello BOURBITA Thameur,

I have not tried to upgrade this specific cluster from 2016 to 2019 yet. However, I upgraded another 2016 cluster to 2019 last year successfully.

I might have just to go 2016 > 2019 > 2022.

Note:

Hyper-V server 2022 no longer support NIC Teaming. The new technology called "Switch Embedded Teaming (SET)". I am not sure yet to whether Hyper-V supports mixed NIC configuration (NIC Teaming and SET) in the same cluster.