I just came to know that we can setup a 2 node window failover cluster without using shared storage (SAN)
In that case, how does services running on 1 node failover to another when their data is not available on another node ?
All in all, can window server failover clustering work without a shared storage ? Does it means that services are failover, and data readily available in node2's storage ?
I am on window server 2012 r2
Best Answer
If you set up a cluster without shared storage then you are very limited as to what resources the cluster can protect. for example if you are running a VM called VM1 on NODE1 and the cluster node fails there is no way for NODE2 to get access to the VHDs and other Virtual machines files it would need in order to start VM1 itself. As other contributors have said setting up a two node cluster without shared storage can be done but only to practice the install of the Failover cluster role. as for the Quorum, in Server 2012R2 we use a dynamic Quorum. in a two node cluster without shared storage one of the cluster nodes looses its vote leaving just one voting member. There is some excellent info available in this link: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn265972.aspx#BKMK_2012