What Is The Name For A Nfs Share On A Windows Failover Cluster?

What is Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC)?

Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) -- a feature of Microsoft Windows Server operating system for fault tolerance and high availability (HA) of applications and services -- enables several computers to host a service, and if one has a fault, the remaining computers automatically accept over the hosting of the service. It is included with Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016 and Azure Stack HCI.

In WSFC, each individual server is called a node. The nodes can be physical computers or virtual machines, and are continued through physical connections and through software. Two or more than nodes are combined to grade a cluster, which hosts the service. The cluster and nodes are constantly monitored for faults. If a fault is detected, the nodes with issues are removed from the cluster and the services may exist restarted or moved to another node.

Capabilities of Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC)

Windows Server Failover Cluster performs several functions, including:

Unified cluster management. The configuration of the cluster and service is stored on each node within the cluster. Changes to the configuration of the service or cluster are automatically sent to each node. This allows for a unmarried update to alter the configuration on all participating nodes.
Resource management. Each node in the cluster may have access to resource such equally networking and storage. These resource tin exist shared past the hosted application to increase the cluster performance beyond what a single node can accomplish. The application can exist configured to have startup dependencies on these resources. The nodes can work together to ensure resource consistency.
Wellness monitoring. The health of each node and the overall cluster is monitored. Each node uses heartbeat and service notifications to determine health. The cluster health is voted on by the quorum of participating nodes.
Automatic and transmission failover. Resource accept a primary node and one or more secondary nodes. If the primary node fails a health check or is manually triggered, buying and use of the resource is transferred to the secondary node. Nodes and the hosted awarding are notified of the failover. This provides error tolerance and allows rolling updates not to affect overall service wellness.

Common applications that use WSFC

A number of different applications can use WSFC, including:

Database Server
Windows Distributed File Organisation (NFS) Namespace Server
File Server
Hyper-V
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft SQL Server
Namespace Server
Windows Internet Proper name Server

Windows Server Failover Clustering, WSFC — Failover cluster configuration wizard

WSFC voting, quorum and witnesses

Every cluster network must account for the possibility of private nodes losing communication to the cluster simply still being able to serve requests or access resource. If this were to happen, the service could go decadent and serve bad responses or cause data stores to become out of sync. This is known equally split-encephalon status.

WSFC uses a voting arrangement with quorum to determine failover and to prevent a dissever-brain status. In the cluster, the quorum is defined every bit half of the full nodes. Afterwards a mistake, the nodes vote to stay online. If less than the quorum amount votes yep, those nodes are removed. For example, a cluster of 5 nodes has a mistake, causing iii to stay in communication in 1 segment and ii in the other. The grouping of three will accept the quorum and stay online, while the other two will not accept a quorum and will go offline.

In minor clusters, an extra witness vote should exist added. The witness is an extra vote that is added equally a tiebreaker in clusters with even numbers of nodes. Without a witness, if half of the nodes go offline at one fourth dimension the whole service is stopped. A witness is required in clusters with only 2 nodes and recommended for three and four node clusters. In clusters of 5 or more nodes, a witness does not provide benefits and is not needed. The witness information is stored in a witness.log file. It tin be hosted every bit a File Share Witness, an Azure Cloud Witness or as a Disk Witness (aka custom quorum deejay).

A dynamic quorum allows the number of votes to constitute a quorum to adjust equally faults occur. This way, as long equally more than half of the nodes don't go offline at ane time, the cluster volition be able to continuously lose nodes without it going offline. This allows for a single node to run the services as the "final man standing."

Windows Server Failover Clustering and Microsoft SQL Server E'er On

SQL Server Always On is a high-availability and disaster recovery product for Microsoft SQL server that takes reward of WSFC. SQL Server Always On has two configurations that can be used separately or in tandem. Failover Cluster Instance (FCI) is a SQL Server instance that is installed across several nodes in a WSFC. Availability Grouping (AG) is a i or more databases that neglect over together to replicated copies. Both register components with WSFC as cluster resources.

PowerShell cmdlets, Windows Server Failover Clustering, WSFC — Windows Server Failover Clustering PowerShell cmdlets

Windows Server Failover Clustering Setup Steps

See Microsoft for full documentation on how to deploy a failover cluster using WSFC.

Verify prerequisites
- All nodes on same Windows Server version
- All nodes using supported hardware
- All nodes are members of the same Agile Directory domain
Install the Failover Clustering feature using Windows Server Manager add Roles and Features
Validate the failover cluster configuration
Create the failover cluster in server manager
Create the cluster roles and services using Microsoft Failover Cluster Director (MSFCM)

See failover cluster quorum considerations for Windows admins , x top tips to maximize hyper-converged infrastructure benefits and how to build a Hyper-V home lab in Windows Server 2019 .

This was last updated in March 2022