How to configure two node Windows Server 2012 cluster on Virtual Machines for testing?

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In this blog post, I walk you through the steps to quickly setup windows server 2012 cluster on virtual machines in test lab.

To start with, we need 3 windows server 2012 virtual machines. Out of 3, one will be used as an iSCSI target (details on iSCSI target) and other two will be part of the two node windows cluster.

Step 1: Configure iSCSI target

Pre-requisite

  • Created Virtual Machine with Windows Server 2012 OS
  • Joined to my test lab domain
  • Added extra virtual hard disk (100 GB) to this machine which I will use as shared storage

Install the iSCSI Target Server feature

  • Add Roles and Features Wizard -> Server Roles -> File and Storage Services -> File and iSCSI Service
  • Select iSCSI Target Server and then click on Add Features

 

  

  • Restart the virtual machine to complete the feature installation.

 Start iSCSI Initiator on the two Cluster nodes

  • Server Manager -> Tools -> Click on the iSCSI Initiator
  • Click on yes to start the iSCSI service and then click on OK on iSCSI Initiator property window

 

Configure iSCSI Target Server

  • Server Manager -> File and Storage Services -> iSCSI

 

 

  • Click on “To Create an iSCSI virtual disk, start the new iSCSI virtual Disk Wizard”.

This disk will be used as a shared disk on the two cluster nodes.

  • Select the storage location and click Next

 

  • Provide the name for this iSCSI virtual disk
  • Specify iSCSI virtual disk size

 

  • Create the iSCSI target

 

  • Provide the suitable name for iSCSI target, I’m using server name as iSCSI target name
  • Add the servers who can access this iSCSI storage

 

  

  • Click Next on Enable Authentication
  • Click create on Confirmation tab and on successful completion, you will see below screen

 

Configure iSCSI initiator on both nodes

  • Server Manager -> Tools -> iSCSI initiator
  • Type the target server name and click on Quick Connect

 

  • If connection successful, you will see below screen

 

Configure the Disks on the iSCSI initiators i.e. Cluster Nodes

  • Server Manager -> Computer Management -> Disk Management
  • Select the disk and make it online and then initialize it.

 

 

 

  • Create the simple volume
  • Also on other node, make the disk online
  • Now this disk will be visible on both the nodes

Installing Windows Cluster

  • On Both the nodes install Failover Clustering feature from Server Manager -> Add Roles and Features -> Features
  • Login to one of the node and open the Failover cluster Manager (Server Manager -> Tools)
  • Click on Validate configuration
  • Add both the node names and run the validation test.

 

  • After validation tests are successful, click on finish to create the cluster

 

  • Provide the suitable name for your cluster

 

  • Click Next on Confirmation and Create New Cluster tabs and click on finish once the creation is complete.

 

Now cluster is ready to use, have fun!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Good to hear that this post helped you.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    you can try this www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

  • Anonymous
    April 05, 2013
    Thank you. This is a great information to create a test environment. Really useful!

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2013
    Hi Babulal, Good informative blog. Can you please tell me where I can find the software for building VM's in my laptop(Windows Vista).

  • Anonymous
    July 04, 2013
    Thanks for great information.  Can you please tell is it compulsory to have window 2012 server on iscsi target or we can use another server ...............

  • Anonymous
    September 20, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2013
    Thank you for this informational post.. helped me a lot and saved me a lot of time ..

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2014
    Can explain what typr of virtual network you used (External, Internal, or private) for communications between the three machines

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2014
    It is good but how to make two nodes on win server 2012 for clustering If you provide I will be gratful for it

  • Anonymous
    April 01, 2014
    Note : SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups functionality is supported by all versions of System Center

  • Anonymous
    May 09, 2014
    exactly what i was looking for... the order of the steps does matter

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2014
    Is this failover clustering only or can this be used as an application shared disk?

  • Anonymous
    July 24, 2014
    This is a great document to teach Clustering effortlessly. I wached Youtube videos for this particular technology and could not find them extremely useful as this step by step. Thank you for the great job.

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  • Anonymous
    October 07, 2014
    Great blog

  • Anonymous
    October 26, 2014
    Is this iscsi suitable to use in production environment? eg. I put bunch of raid disks on a server, configure iscsi and run sql on another server connecting to it.

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  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2014
    Thank you Very good BLOG

  • Anonymous
    January 26, 2015
    Very helpful blog.

  • Anonymous
    February 18, 2015
    excellent piece of information

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2015
    very useful scenario. it's woking fantastically for me

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2015
    Very useful info...

  • Anonymous
    April 27, 2015
    Quorum disk or configuration is not require for MSCS??

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2015
    Can we configure the Two Node Cluster on a VMservers from multiple Datacenters

  • Anonymous
    June 06, 2015
    Good blog, easy approach and helping others understand.

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2015
    Thanks for sharing