Monday, May 31, 2010

How to add a Node to a Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V Failover Cluster

Dammit - me and my lack of documentation. Worked with Hyper-V for the first time six months ago (I'm predominantly a VMware dude). I Had to add a node to a failover cluster this morning, and found myself wishing I had documented it better the first time around. Got it sorted after a bit of scratching around; as you'll see below I've also finally gotten round to documenting the process. The below assumes that you've hooked it presented appropriate the appropriate LUNs on the SAN etc. etc....

  1. Install the OS (no sh!t Sherlock). Make sure you run the same edition on all nodes. Also installed any required MPIO software that may be required by your SAN.
  2. Join the server to the same domain that your other Cluster nodes are members of
  3. Enable and configure Windows Updates
  4. Make sure that your network adapter naming convention is the same as on the other nodes. This will make management easier
  5. Install the Hyper-V role, reboot when prompted
  6. Make sure to have naming consistency in your Virtual network. In other words, exactly the same name and capitalization
  7. Install the Failover Clustering feature, reboot when prompted
  8. Physically connect the server to your SAN
  9. Join the node to the cluster. This can be done via the Failover Cluster Management MMC: Right click your cluster name, select Add Node, enter the server name and click OK. The command line alternative is "cluster.exe /cluster:Cluster_Name /add /node:Node_Name"
It might be necessary to change your quorum settings afterwards - this Microsoft webpage explains the options rather nicely. The quorum settings are changed via the Fialover Cluster Manager MMC, in the Actions pane there's a Configure Cluster Quorum Settings link.

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