Failover Cluster Deployment Guide

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can use failover clustering in Windows Server® 2008 to provide high availability for your server-based services and applications. When a failure occurs on one server in a cluster, resources are redirected and the workload is redistributed to another server in the cluster. For additional overview information about failover clustering and a description of what's new in failover clustering, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=62368.

About this guide

This guide is intended for use by system administrators and system engineers. It provides detailed guidance for deploying a failover design that has already been selected. If a design has not yet been selected, we recommend that you first select a design from the Failover Cluster Design Guide (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=129107).

After you select your design, plan the names of your clustered servers and the IP addressing strategy and disk resources that each clustered server will need, you can then use this guide to deploy your failover cluster design in your production environment. To find a checklist for your design, see Overview of Checklists in the Failover Cluster Deployment Guide. This guide provides steps for deploying any of the following failover cluster designs:

• Clustered file or print server

• Clustered instance of a service or application

• Failover cluster in which all nodes run Hyper-V

• Failover cluster with multiple services and applications

• Clustered service or application in a multi-site failover cluster

You can identify the procedures that apply to your design by using the checklists in this guide, or you can browse for procedures in the following sections in this guide:

• Deploying Failover Cluster Nodes, Networks, and Storage

• Configuring and Reviewing Settings in a Failover Cluster

• Configuring and Verifying Services and Applications that Run on a Failover Cluster

For information about hardware and software requirements for failover clusters, see "Appendix A: Failover Cluster Requirements" in the Failover Cluster Design Guide (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=129108). For a list of additional topics about failover clustering, see Finding Additional Failover Clustering Resources.

What this guide does not provide

This guide does not provide:

• Descriptions of the improvements to failover clustering in Windows Server 2008. For this information, see the topic describing new and changed features at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=62368.

• In-depth guidance about how to use the cluster validation wizard that is part of failover clustering. This deployment guide provides basic guidance, but for additional information, see the step-by-step guide on using cluster validation at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=119949.

• Guidance about migrating from a cluster running Windows Server 2003 to a cluster running Windows Server 2008. For this information, see the step-by-step guide for migration cluster settings at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=120943.

• Detailed information about how quorum works in a failover cluster. For this information, see the step-by-step guide for configuring quorum options at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125621.

• Information about how to troubleshoot cluster-specific events that are logged through Event Viewer. For more information, see the list of links at Troubleshooting a Failover Cluster by Reviewing Event Messages.