Robert Smit MVP Blog   Azure and Microsoft Windows Insider Server Cloud Blog

To create a Windows server 2012 failover cluster you need just a few steps.

First we use the group creation to manage the servers easily. I name the Group as it would be my new SQL Cluster. I show you all the screens just so that you can find the options. Not every body find it easy to find the things that he has to do.

 

So we created the groups and we are adding the Failover cluster Roles to the nodes just right click and add roles and the wizard pops up choose the failover cluster tools do this for both nodes.

    

 

On top of the screen you can see on what node you install the Roles. Remember you don’t have to go to the node to install the roles you can do this in the server groups.

 

Or you can use Posh. there are a lot new powershell commands to find them it is easy you can use the *  The above Gui things can be done with one line Posh.

Now there are a few steps you can do to deploy roles

Get-WindowsFeature *

Get-WindowsFeature Failover-Clustering

 

As you can see this is on the remote cluster node ! I’m logged on on node 1 and it runs also on node 2

install-WindowsFeature Failover-Clustering

Or do it in

When We want to create a new cluster we can do this also in Posh just one line

New-Cluster -Name "myfirstcluster" -Node mvpwin8-n1 -NoStorage -StaticAddress "10.255.255.73"

Or gui again I show you all the screens just to see how fast posh is

 

 

Remember the validation reports are important to have if you setup fails or you cluster is in trouble run validation and see where to problem is.

 

7 clicks further your cluster is ready. now we are adding disk to the cluster and configure the witness disk

First in powershell.

My cluster name is : cluster8

the Get-ClusterAvailableDisk -Cluster cluster8

List all available disk

Get-ClusterAvailableDisk -Cluster cluster8

Get-ClusterAvailableDisk -Cluster cluster8 |Add-ClusterDisk

this adds all the disks to the cluster

or in the Gui

  Now that the disk are ready we configure the Quorum disk

on top of the cluster right click and configure quorum.

 

We have a two node cluster , use the recommended settings.

 

So all this in 3 lines powershell

install-WindowsFeature Failover-Clustering

Get-ClusterAvailableDisk -Cluster cluster8

New-Cluster -Name "myfirstcluster" -Node mvpwin8-n1 -NoStorage -StaticAddress "10.255.255.73"

 

 

Did you also see the little export line ? in the Roles installation field save it for later.

it looks like this.

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<Objs xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/powershell/2004/04" Version="1.1.0.1"><Obj RefId="0"><TN RefId="0"><T>System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection`1[[System.Management.Automation.PSObject, System.Management.Automation, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35]]</T><T>System.Object</T></TN><LST><Obj RefId="1"><TN RefId="1"><T>Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimInstance#root/Microsoft/Windows/ServerManager/ServerComponent_NET_Framework_Features</T><T>Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimInstance#root/Microsoft/Windows/ServerManager/MSFT_ServerManagerServerComponentDescriptor</T><T>Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimInstance#ServerComponent_NET_Framework_Features</T><T>Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimInstance#MSFT_ServerManagerServerComponentDescriptor</T><T>Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimInstance</T><T>System.Object</T></TN><ToString>ServerComponent_NET_Framework_Features</ToString><Props><Nil N="PSComputerName"/></Props>

 

So if you want to reuse / import this file on a fresh new server it can.

Import Configuration settings in windows 2012  based on exported Configuration settings in windows 2012

Go to powershell

install-WindowsFeature –configurationfilepath \serverconfigfilessavedconfig.xml

And your done