Windows server file server cluster

Accessing data via a network is common today. File shares for regular users and administrative purposes are widely used in business environments. Network file shares are also used to store application data that should be accessible from the servers running the applications. Hyper-V servers can be configured to store virtual machine (VM) files on file shares and to access these files via the network. For important VM files located on file shares, there are advanced requirements for these file shares. For example, file shares must provide high availability, high performance, etc.

This blog post explains how to set up a Scale-Out File Server (SOFS) for Microsoft Hyper-V.

Preparing a Cluster

Deploying a failover cluster is a main requirement for configuring an Scale-Out File Server (SOFS). The SOFS can run on the same Hyper-V cluster or on a separate cluster based on Windows machines. When you use the same cluster to provide multiple services, this cluster is called a hyper-converged cluster. Hyper-converged environments are used in virtualized datacenters or software-defined datacenters.

You can read our blog posts about deploying a Hyper-V failover cluster and check the complete guide about Hyper-V clustering to learn about deploying clusters with Windows machines.

Here we will focus on the Scale-Out File Server configuration. You must use Cluster Shared Volumes based on iSCSI targets or Storage Space Direct as the storage connected to cluster nodes. Cluster Shared Volumes and Storage Spaces allow multiple servers to connect to the same disk simultaneously, which is important for a cluster.

When you create a cluster, you should add two identical cluster nodes to an Active Directory domain, and you must install the Failover Clustering role with the File Server role. You can use the graphical user interface in Windows Server or the command line interface in PowerShell.

You can install the Windows File Server role and Failover Clustering role on all nodes of the cluster with these PowerShell commands:

Install-WindowsFeature -Name FS-FileServer

Install-WindowsFeature -Name Failover-Clustering -IncludeManagementTools

Note: Functionality of the browser-based Windows Admin Center is limited and creating a cluster role and managing SOFS are not supported. Use the traditional Admin Center in the Windows graphical user interface.

Scale-Out File Server Configuration

Once you have prepared the environment according to the requirements and have the failover cluster configured, you can configure a Scale-Out File Server.

Open Failover Cluster Manager: Start > Administrative Tool > Failover Cluster Manager. Right click your cluster name (cluster1 in our case) and, in the context menu, click Configure Role.

The High Availability wizard is launched.

Before You Begin. Skip this step and click Next.

Select Role. Select File Server as the needed role to deploy the Scale-Out File Server. Hit Next at each step of the wizard to continue. Note that this File Server role is not the same as the File Server role in the Add Windows Roles and Features Wizard of Windows Server.

File Server Type. Select Scale-Out File Server for application data. This option is suitable for Hyper-V storage and database storage. Client connections are distributed across cluster nodes for better performance. The SMB 3.0 network protocol is supported for this option. SMB 3.0 is suitable for a Scale-Out File Server as it supports SMB Transparent Failover, VSS for SMB shares, SMB Encryption, SMB Multichannel, and SMB Direct. SMB Multichannel is used to provide multiple connections simultaneously over the network to increase performance and add fault tolerance functionality at the network layer.

Client Access Point. Enter the name that clients must use to access this clustered SOFS role, for example, SOFS01. Follow the rules of entering a NetBIOS name.

Confirmation. Check your configuration and continue if you confirm this configuration. The needed objects are created in Active Directory.

Summary. Check configuration summary and click Finish to save settings and close the wizard.

The SOFS clustering role is now configured. We have not entered an IP address to access the SOFS share because DNS Round Robin is used to resolve the name defined for the Scale-Out File Server. The distributed network name is used without using a single clustered IP address.

Adding a File Share for SOFS

Now you can add a file share to the Scale-Out File Server.

Go back to Failover Cluster Manager, select your cluster, select roles, and right-click the SOFS role (SOFS01 in our case). In the context menu, click Add File Share.

The New Share wizard opens.

Select Profile. The profile is needed to define optimized settings for the needed share type. There are five file share profiles:

• SMB Share – Quick
• SMB Share – Advanced
• SMB Share – Applications
• NFS Share – Quick
• NFS Share – Advanced

Select SMB Share – Applications because this share type is intended to access storage for Hyper-V, databases and other server applications with the optimal settings. Click Next at each step to continue.

Share Location. Select the file server and path for the share. In my case, Iselect the file server named SOFS01. In the Share location section, click Select by volume with the appropriate path to the shared folder. A Cluster Shared Volume must be configured to enable the Select by volume option.

Share Name. Type an SOFS share name, for example, sharedVMs. The name is reflected in the path to the share. The format of the local path to the share is like C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Shares\sharename. The format of the remote path looks like \\SOFSname\sharename.

Other Settings. Configure share settings. Leave the Enable continuous availability checkbox selected. This option is selected by default at the Other Settings step if you select the “SMB Share – Applications” profile at the Select Profile step before.

You can leave other options as is (see the screenshot below).

Permissions. Set permissions to control access to the SOFS share. On the screenshot, you can see permissions selected by default. If you are configuring scale-out storage for Hyper-V, then you must grant full control to all Hyper-V computer accounts, Hyper-V administrators accounts, and the SYSTEM account. Access must be granted on the file share and file system level. If you need to use a Scale-Out File Server to store MS SQL Server database files, then you must grant full access to the SQL Server service account on the file system and share level.

Confirmation. Check your configuration and click Create.

Results. Wait until the wizard configures the SOFS share.

Now you can open Failover Cluster Manager, select Your cluster name > Roles > Your SOFS name and click the Shares tab in the bottom of the Failover Cluster Manager window to view the shared folder and the path to this folder.

Now you can enter a network path to the shared folder and access the SOFS share. All servers of a file server cluster serve the file share. In my case, I use this path:

\\SOFS01\sharedVMs

I can create a Hyper-V virtual machine on Hyper-V hosts and define the \\SOFS01\sharedVMs path to the SOFS share to store the virtual machine files, including virtual disk files.

Conclusion

This blog post has explained how to deploy a highly available file share by using Windows clustering functionality and covered installation of a Scale-Out File Server in Windows Server 2019. An SOFS can be configured after preparing the failover cluster with the File Server role on all cluster nodes. The main steps of setting up an SOFS are configuring a high availability file server role and configuring an SMB network share.

Using a Scale-Out File Server to store Hyper-V VM files with high availability reduces the risk of VM failure from a storage perspective. However, it is highly recommended that you perform Hyper-V backup for all important virtual machines regularly. Having a Hyper-V VM backup allows you to protect data, avoid data loss, and restore workloads in a short time when needed.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication is the data protection solution that can protect your Microsoft Hyper-V VMs on standalone Hyper-V hosts and in failover clusters. Download the Free Edition of NAKIVO Backup & Replication and start backing up Microsoft Hyper-V VMs.

Installing the Cluster is easy now days. But just this I post a little blog on how to do this, In my blog stats it shows that the 2012 post is still very active , so time for an update to Windows Server 2019. in the creation there isn’t much changed, it gets only easier. but If you still not in PowerShell you got more clicks to do an less Coffee. And Windows Admin Center is also a great addition to manage a cluster. This blog post is also usable in Azure Only you need to add Storagespacesdirect and a CSV file share.

Just install a bare metal (VM) windows Server 2019 and do a domain join and the fun can start.

Installing the Cluster Feature in powershell

Now that the basic cluster is ready we start with the HA share

File share witness enhancements We enabled the use of a file share witness in the following scenarios:

• Absent or extremely poor Internet access because of a remote location, preventing the use of a cloud witness.
• Lack of shared drives for a disk witness. This could be a Storage Spaces Direct hyperconverged configuration, a SQL Server Always On Availability Groups (AG), or an * Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG), none of which use shared disks.
• Lack of a domain controller connection due to the cluster being behind a DMZ.
• A workgroup or cross-domain cluster for which there is no Active Directory cluster name object (CNO). Find out more about these enhancements in the following post in Server & Management Blogs: Failover Cluster File Share Witness and DFS.

  We now also explicitly block the use of a DFS Namespaces share as a location. Adding a file share witness to a DFS share can cause stability issues for your cluster, and this configuration has never been supported. We added logic to detect if a share uses DFS Namespaces, and if DFS Namespaces is detected, Failover Cluster Manager blocks creation of the witness and displays an error message about not being supported.

that’s it the cluster is created, we can start with the File server

Next is installation of the file server role

A restart is needed! After the restart we can build the cluster with the HA file share

Now that the File Server Role is added we can add the Disk. Or use a disk that you already added before.

First we need to add a disk this can be done in the Failover Cluster manager or with PowerShell

Get-ClusterAvailableDisk | Add-ClusterDisk

The Roles are there and the Disk is added

Next step is adding the File server Role to the Cluster and add the HA File Share.

In this case I have a fail over disk and I use the File Server for general use.

So when adding the Disk it is not showing the disk. This is The disk is added to the cluster but the disk isn’t formatted!

Keep in mind that formating the cluster disk while it is online is not possible. You need to set the disk in maintenance mode else the format will fail.

So after the disk format we will see the Disk appear and can be added to the File server

After this the File server is up and running. As you can see the setup is screen intense, building this with PowerShell is a lot faster.

Powershell

Quick steps with powershell and even the share is created and encrypted

Next step is adding the file share.

go for the Quick setup

Pick the disk and select the folder with the data on the disk, if there is no data then create a folder that will hold the data later.

as you can see the UNC path from the File Server.

As you can see the settings can be adjusted for you needs and also set the right access, and keep in mind this needs to be don on the Cluster Level!

All Done

So creating a File Server and 2 file shares is Click intensive if you don’t use PowerShell.

But What about Windows Admin Center ? yes that would be an option also except here you can’t create a cluster role.

You can create a new role but no file server /share etc.

But when the share is created and running like now you can use Windows Admin Center for migration the data to the file share.

But more and more options are coming in Windows Admin Center below are some links that you can use to add your request to the UserVoice

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/use/manage-failover-clusters

More Coming

Failover cluster management in Windows Admin Center is actively under development and new features will be added in the near future. You can view the status and vote for features in UserVoice:

Feature Request

Show more clustered disk info

Support additional cluster actions

Support converged clusters running Hyper-V and Scale-Out File Server on different clusters

View CSV block cache

See all or propose new feature

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