January 22, 2014 at 11:44 pm
Hi,
I want to set up AlwaysOn Availability Groups using 2 windows servers.
1. I have 2 Winodows enterprise servers ready
2. Clustering feature enabled on both of them
So before I start creating the cluster, Do I need request for a Shared Drive for Quorum disk?
Does Quorum disk required to configure AlwaysOn Availability Groups?
January 23, 2014 at 4:28 am
If both servers are on the same site then using a disk witness would be fine
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
January 23, 2014 at 8:08 am
Mani-584606 (1/22/2014)
Hi,I want to set up AlwaysOn Availability Groups using 2 windows servers.
1. I have 2 Winodows enterprise servers ready
2. Clustering feature enabled on both of them
So before I start creating the cluster, Do I need request for a Shared Drive for Quorum disk?
Does Quorum disk required to configure AlwaysOn Availability Groups?
Best practice for 2 nodes Always On is to use a File Share witness. That share should be on a different server than the 2 in the WSFC, and should be on a server you don't expect to go down very often if at all.
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
January 24, 2014 at 3:54 am
TheSQLGuru (1/23/2014)
Best practice for 2 nodes Always On is to use a File Share witness.
Mmm, that's not a BP that i've ever read in the AO documentation.
The quorum configuration is configuered and recommended at the OS level, not really anything to do with the app since the OS cluster service controls the cluster anyway.
Basically, unless your cluster has an odd number of noes or the cluster nodes have no shared storage at all and\or located on mutliple sites, a disk witness is a perfectly acceptable recommended practice.
These are the accepted recommendations for quorum based on Windows 2008 R2 and still valid for 2012.
Num of cluster nodes Quorum recommendation
Odd number of nodes Node Majority
Even number of nodes (but not a multi-site cluster) Node and Disk Majority
Even number of nodes, multi-site cluster Node and File Share Majority
Even number of nodes, no shared storage Node and File Share Majority
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
January 24, 2014 at 8:21 am
You gave the answer right in your quote of guidelines:
> Even number of nodes, no shared storage Node and File Share Majority <
From what I read of the OP, this is a non-shared-storage-2-node WSFC doing Always On. Thus my statement about Node and File Share Majority as the recommended Quorum choice.
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
January 24, 2014 at 8:58 am
The best practice is at the cluster level not the app, that's what i'm trying to point out. The nodes undoubtedly have access to shared storage as the OP is asking whether to request a shared disk or not. If the nodes are same site, a disk witness would work just as well and likely be the preferred option.
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
January 24, 2014 at 11:16 am
We have Vmware VM machines. As per Systems team, if we wanted to use Quorum as a Shared drive, then they need to create RDM drive And if they create RDM drive, then they can't perform vmotion. So they suggest to use Fileshare as Quorum option so that they can perform vmotion if case of failures. Please advise.
January 24, 2014 at 11:39 am
Mani-584606 (1/24/2014)
We have Vmware VM machines. As per Systems team, if we wanted to use Quorum as a Shared drive, then they need to create RTM drive And if they create RTM drive, then they can't perform vmotion. So they suggest to use Fileshare as Quorum option so that they can perform vmotion if case of failures. Please advise.
I already told you, and Perry provided documentation that, File Share is recommended for your scenario.
It is concerning me quite a bit that you are asking questions as basic as this for something that could be a CRITICAL part of your company's HA/DR plan. PLEASE be aware that there are LOTS of things you need to plan/review/implement/test/maintain/etc to have robust HA/DR!! Do not believe for a second that you can handle this reading a few blog posts, some BOL and with asking some forum questions.
Best,
Kevin G. Boles
SQL Server Consultant
SQL MVP 2007-2012
TheSQLGuru on googles mail service
January 24, 2014 at 11:45 am
Mani-584606 (1/24/2014)
We have Vmware VM machines. As per Systems team, if we wanted to use Quorum as a Shared drive, then they need to create RTM drive And if they create RTM drive, then they can't perform vmotion. So they suggest to use Fileshare as Quorum option so that they can perform vmotion if case of failures. Please advise.
You mean RDM!
Yes a shared disk for a VM must be a raw device unless you present it over iSCSI to the OS directly, you should have pointed out earlier these were VMs 😉
In this scenario Kevin is exactly correct that a fileshare witness would be preferable.
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"Ya can't make an omelette without breaking just a few eggs" 😉
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