We have a fully functional failover cluster 2012 R2 with Active Directory level 2012. We want to add a second failover cluster with nodes running Windows server 2022, not an upgrade, an additional cluster. Can the two clusters (the 2012 and 2022) coexist and be managed under the existing failover cluster manager? Or its better to add the new 2022 cluster under a child domain? The goal is to complete the task without modifying the existing 2012R2 failover cluster. All documents found is about in place upgrade for the cluster.

Hi @ Luis Garcia You can perform a upgrade to the next version. If your existing cluster has Windows 2012 R2 , you can set a mixed mode to upgrade to Windows 2016 but you cannot add windows 2019 until you decom node under Windows 2012 R2. Cluster operating system rolling upgrade Please don't forget to accept helpful answer

Add a second failover cluster with nodes 2022 to a 2012R2 domain with existing failover cluster.

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Thameur-BOURBITA 32,586 Reputation points

2024-01-30T17:22:52.5966667+00:00

Hi @Luis Garcia

You can perform a upgrade to the next version. If your existing cluster has Windows 2012 R2 , you can set a mixed mode to upgrade to Windows 2016 but you cannot add windows 2019 until you decom node under Windows 2012 R2. Cluster operating system rolling upgrade

Please don't forget to accept helpful answer
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Luis Garcia 26 Reputation points

2024-01-30T17:50:30.2966667+00:00

Thanks for your post. Is not an upgrade of the existing cluster, it is about adding a new failover cluster, additional hardware, with separate shared storage. Do we have to upgrade to 2016, then 2019 and 2022 to add the additional cluster 2022? Why Decommission, we want to keep he two clusters operational.

Thameur-BOURBITA 32,586 Reputation points

2024-01-30T18:32:58.0866667+00:00

@Luis Garcia •

yes if you want use mixed mode with Windows 2022

I think it's time to remove Windows 2012 R2 because it's not supported by Microsoft. Please don't forget to accept helpful answer

Luis Garcia 26 Reputation points

2024-01-30T19:00:45.7366667+00:00

Sorry for my confusion, but we are not mixing 2022 and 2012 nodes on the same cluster, still requires the upgrade of the 2012 nodes?

Luis Garcia 26 Reputation points

2024-01-30T19:25:58.0666667+00:00

The plan is to remove the 2012 at the end of the project, we need some time working the two clusters at the same time to transfer the workloads without downtime. Never had a good experience with server operating system in place upgrade.

Thameur-BOURBITA 32,586 Reputation points

2024-01-30T20:59:06.4233333+00:00

@Luis Garcia •

I think also the best approach is to create new cluster with Windows 2022 and move all workload there and remove old cluster in the end of migration.

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Luis Garcia 26 Reputation points

2024-01-30T21:16:27.8966667+00:00

That is my conclusion too, new 2022 domain, create the 2022 cluster, transfer the workload and remove the old 2012 system. In place upgrade from 2012 to 2016, 2019 and 20222 for two nodes at the end formatting the servers and reinstalling on the same hardware over and over seems to be an overkill. Then the workload needs to be transferred anyway. Thanks for your help.
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Add a second failover cluster with nodes 2022 to a 2012R2 domain with existing failover cluster.

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