Windows server 2019

Question

Is there a way to make a domain controller highly available or create a fail over if the node goes offline ?

Answer 1

Hi @whitneykenny-7003,

You cannot create a failover cluster with Domain Controllers, the best approach for redundancy is to stand up a second domain controller, this gives high availability and disaster mitigation automatically because of the Active Directory replication.

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If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote and/or accept as answer, thank you!

Best regards,
Leon

Answer 2

Hi,

Thanks for posting on our forum!

Based on your demand, I agree with what @Alex Bykovskyi and @Leon Laude suggested. The proper course of action would be to create two Domain Controllers. You can put DC in a cluster but we always not recommend to do that, as the cluster rely on active directory. If a node fails or for what reason the cluster has to contact AD, there was be some problem. Besides, if you want Domain Controllers to be virtualized , just keep the DC VMs off the cluster. Don't confuse a clustered, highly available VM with a clustered, highly available service. A clustered, highly available VM makes the VM highly available and indirectly makes the services on the VM highly available BUT only so long as the VM itself is up and running. if the VM itself is down, so are the services it provides. Clustered VM's protect against HOST failures, not VM or service level failures.

In addition, in Microsoft Learn, we recommend that your clustered servers be member servers rather than domain controller. If they are, you need an additional server that acts as the domain controller in the domain that contains your failover cluster. Here is an example of how to deploy a two-node clyster:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/failover-clustering/deploy-two-node-clustered-file-server

Thanks for your support! Besides, I would appreciate it if you could help me Accept Answer to support my job and to make others who have a similar issue with yours to get to their answers more quickly.

Have a nice day! : )

BR,
Joan

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Answer 3

Hi,

As mentioned, best practices is to have at least 2 domain controllers running outside of the cluster. Active Directory handles HA and DR between the DC hosts. The following video will be helpful:
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resource-library/useful-tips-for-setting-up-microsoft-active-directory-domain-controllers/

Cheers,

Alex Bykovskyi

StarWind Software

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