Windows Server Failover Clustering

Score10 out of 10

39 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Windows Server Failover Clustering are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Flexibility in Maintenance Tasks: Users have expressed satisfaction with the ability to conduct maintenance and patching on the passive node without requiring database shutdown, thus minimizing operational downtime significantly. This feature enables them to keep their systems up-to-date and secure without disrupting critical operations, showcasing the product's adaptability to dynamic IT environments.

Automated Recovery Assistance: Several reviewers have highlighted the value of the automated recovery feature, which enables swift system recovery without the need for IT intervention in case of failures or disruptions. This functionality instills confidence in users by providing a reliable failover mechanism that ensures business continuity and minimizes potential data loss during unexpected events.

User-Friendly Interface and Robust Documentation: Customers appreciate the product's intuitive interface that allows for easy out-of-the-box usage. Additionally, they find the readily available documentation to be a valuable resource for reference and troubleshooting. The combination of a user-friendly design and comprehensive documentation streamlines adoption processes, empowers users to maximize product capabilities effectively, and reduces the learning curve associated with implementing new technologies within their organizations.

Reviews

13 Reviews

Windows Failover Clustering, one of the best features available in Windows Server OS!!

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

February 18, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilized Windows Server Failover Clustering as an integral part of a MS SQL cluster setup. We utilized it for almost zero downtime on our Microsoft SQL serving our on prem Sharepoint implementations, as well as several critical IT infrastructure systems that need a SQL database back end. This allows us to perform maintenance and patching without affecting the applications that use the SQL server. It's deployed on a active passive setup. We also set up a test Hyper-V high availability cluster.

Pros

It allows us to perform maintenance and patching on the passive node without having to shutdown the database and incurring downtime.
We are able to repair a failed server but failing the database over if there is a hardware failure on the active node. Minimizing downtime on the database.
It provides an automated recovery when there is failure without IT intervention when there is an issue.

Cons

The setup of the Windows Server Failover Clustering is complex, requiring different networks and multiple network cards.
Better integration between the Windows Failover clustering and Hyper-V. Unlike VMWare you have to make changes to two places instead of just one panel.
I wish there was a web portal to manage the cluster. Instead you have to remote desktop into the VIP address and go to the Cluster manager.

Likelihood to Recommend

It works fantastic in conjuncture with the MS SQL cluster setup. When a SQL node had a hardware failure, it failed over to the passive node. No one was the wiser that anything happened to the system until our Operations department realized that node was down. We were able to repair the server and bring it back up without causing issues on the database. Which meant the application was also still up, which we were very happy with. I didn't like it when used with Hyper-V to setup a cluster, although it allowed us to set it up similar to a VMWare cluster, I did not like having to go between the Windows Failover Clustering manager then the Hyper-V manager to work on a VM. It also caused a small issue when one of my colleagues setup a VM, he forgot to add Windows Failover Cluster.

Edwin Labirua

Senior Infrastructure Engineer in Information Technology at Leviton Manufacturing Inc. (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Simple and out of the box

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

October 25, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are currently using Windows Server Failover Clustering to serve our Microsoft Hyper-V cluster. The cluster runs our production environment comprising of email services, file services, database services, remote access, and more. All Microsoft Hyper-V roles are clustered and their storage is also managed by the cluster. It is currently running in a two node environment.

Pros

Easy to use
Out of the box
Documentation is readily available

Cons

Include storage spaces as part of the same feature set along with storage tiering

Likelihood to Recommend

Windows Server Failover Clustering is very well suited for any environment. From a one man IT shop to a business run by a large support team. It can provide easy failover between its nodes. Especially in the case of schedule maintenance on a Hyper-V node, all you need to do is ensure all roles are drained and moved to another node along with storage.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

9 years of experience

You want seamless virtual machine migration with fault tolerance? Try Windows Server Failover Clustering.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

August 9, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have Hyper-V implemented as our primary hypervisor and we have also implemented failover clustering with cluster storage and multipath IO to mitigate node failure without impacting our work loads, in case of cluster node failure it seamlessly migrates workloads to other hypervisors without any downtime, the other benefit is that when we are updating hypervisors we live migrate virtual machines to different nodes in same cluster and restart one by one that results in no downtime and hassle free operation. it simply made management of virtual machines simpler and improved overall uptime of our infrastructure.

Pros

Seamless Live Migrations
Quick Migrations
Failover in case of Node Failure
Storage Migration

Cons

Shared nothing live migration need some improvements.
Cluster events are not very understandable.
Cluster validation.

Likelihood to Recommend

I have observed while moving multiple virtual machines failover cluster starts slowing down, so we move a maximum of two live migrations at a time, but quick migration is far faster. We used it for replicas and noncritical workloads. Windows Server Failover Clustering is very well suited for small to medium-sized organizations, i.e. its good for a few hundred virtual machines. The features present in failover clustering are getting better with each iteration.

Verified User

Professional in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

Clustering at its best

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

July 26, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have Setup Windows Server Failover Clustering for our SQL Server Always On so that our databases are configured on Failover mode. In case any of our servers failing to respond this service will move our databases from the primary server to the disaster recovery server. Our Information technology department uses it and the user across the organization is not aware of what we have deployed or what is our architecture.

Pros

Failover Priority setting , i.e. High, medium , low.
online services movement.
Online data movement across clusters.
No downtime,
Easy role movement

Cons

Quorum settings should be improved
San environment should be improved
Logging of Cluster events should be improved

Likelihood to Recommend

SQL Server in always-on mode is the best suitable for windows server failover clustering rather than configuring the SQL Server in cluster mode having the same disk and the disk will be moved with all databases, alwaysOn is the best and suitable way to configure it on Failover Clustering as we have two separate disks and database files on the separate servers.

Muhammad Hassan Khan

Deputy Manager in Information Technology at Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

The Best Failover For Anything That Failovers

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

June 29, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is the backbone of our IT Infrastructure, It provides high availability of the servers to meet our business requirements, we are using it for failover solution of our exchange servers and database servers, Microsoft is working hard to making it better day by day and with the newer version 2019 we can failover to a cloud or on premises both.

Pros

It is reliable, its fast, it is the best you would not even know that you have been switched to other node.
Clustering based on geographic distribution
Multiple server multiple site deployment

Cons

Configuration could make easier
[I feel] pricing should be considered for middle size organizations to adapt it
Storage pool and VDM configuration is confusing [in my experience]

Likelihood to Recommend

Best for organizations that require 24 hours of enabled IT infrastructure to support business needs so incase of any updating activity or a disaster the user won't even know what had happened at the back and ensure smooth operations. Hot plug scalable storage is a good option for organizations using RDBMS and thin clients as well.

Verified User

Employee in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Windows Server Failover Clustering never fails to fail over.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

March 7, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

At our organization, we use Windows Server Failover Clustering to keep our Azure DevOps Server environment in a high-availability state for our end users. Both the application tier and the SQL tier are clustered so that if there is a network fault or outage, the system will fail-over to the other server node, and the user can continue to work without knowing the server was down.

Pros

Works great with SQL Server clustering
Highly configurable, but simple and intuitive
Cluster events are shown in the tool (No need to go to the Windows Event Logs)

Cons

Would be nice if the tool had built-in alerts for when a fail-over occurred
Only one network card on a node in the same network

Likelihood to Recommend

Windows Server Failover Clustering is well suited for organizations that need to have systems running in a high-availability mode. If there are systems that would pose a high cost to the business if there is downtime due to unplanned events, then Windows Server Failover Clustering will help assure 24/7 uptime. Also, clustering can be helpful for planned events, such as server updates. You can install an upgrade on the inactive node and then fail-over manually, switching the active and inactive nodes, upgrade the other node, and then failback. Also, while I don't have direct experience with this aspect, my understanding is that Windows Server Failover Clustering is also well suited for load balancing VMs.

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Simple to use

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

December 6, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use failover clustering to provide an active-passive failover for VMs hosted on 2 physical servers. The VMs server both are public-facing websites and our internal CRM so completely mission-critical to the entire business for continuity. This gives us the redundancy and the ability to keep things going when constantly updating windows! WFC has some very advanced features but our needs are fairly simple and this works really well for us.

Pros

Redundancy - We can spead the VMs that we use across 2 physical servers, but should one go down it all switches to the working one.
Spread the load - We can assign preferred servers for the VMs to run on so when they are available the VMs can be set to run on specific hardware.

Cons

Has a pretty steep learning curve.
Can be a lot of hoops to jump through to get up and running.
Easy to missing settings buried in the GUI.

Likelihood to Recommend

For us it's a no brainer, we're a Microsoft tech house so to have a couple of physical boxes to spread the load and provide redundancy it the only way to go. Included in the OS so it makes sense to make use of it.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Great choice for Windows shops

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

August 19, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Windows Server Failover Clustering for our Hyper-V environment to improve the availability of the VMs. The most important problem addressed by Failover Clustering is the reduction of the downtime for server maintenance. Standalone Hyper-V hypervisors tend to need a lot of downtime for Windows updates. The entire organization uses VMs running on top of the Failover Cluster. We use a hyper-converged solution with Failover Clustering to avoid the need to purchase expensive SANs, so the cost of improved uptime is relatively low.

Pros

Reduced outages for server maintenance. VMs can be live migrated from the node being taken down for maintenance to avoid outages. With Cluster-Aware Updating (CAU) it is possible to run Windows Update on cluster nodes automatically.
Very fast live migration and failover. With hyper-converged DAS, live migration is so fast, it is hard to see the VM outage in the RDP session.
Inexpensive. Failover Clustering is included in Windows Server. For educational organization, Windows Server licenses are extremely cheap.

Cons

iSCSI configuration can be confusing. To achieve redundancy, each node in the cluster must have redundant (multi-path) access to storage (iSCSI, FiberChannel, etc.). Configuring iSCSI multi-path correctly can take several tries.
The configuration is time-consuming. Cluster Validation Wizard is verbose - takes a while to read through and check all the issues. It is still very important to go through all of the information though. It is easy to configure a cluster that seems fine but does not failover when needed.
Not really a drawback but the effort must be made to understand quorum configuration if a cluster has even number of nodes. I would suggest doing multiple failover tests before using the cluster for production, including pulling power cables from nodes and disconnecting network cables to simulate switch failure.

Likelihood to Recommend

Windows Failover Clustering is a good fit for a medium to a large organization with a predominantly Windows Server environment. VMware and Linux shops have their own clustering options. A cost-benefit analysis should be used before deploying a cluster, as extra capacity for failover is an additional expense. As servers are quite reliable, stand-alone hypervisors can be a better fit for a small business, which can tolerate outages for maintenance. While Failover Clustering feature itself is included in the Windows Server license, cost of extra servers and especially SANs (if used) is significant. The organization must calculate whether reduced downtime is worth the expense, especially considering that clustering by itself does not guarantee high availability.

Verified User

Professional in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Keeping It Up - Windows Server Failover Clustering for HA Applications

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

September 7, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Windows Server Failover Clustering for two primary reasons: high availability and simplification of performing systems maintenance. Our failover clustering allows critical applications to continue with only a minor interruption in service if a needed system resource fails. It also allows systems administrators to failover an application to a passive node in order to perform scheduled or un-scheduled maintenance on the other node, and then fail back if necessary, all with minimal interruption of critical business applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and BMC's Control-M Workload Automation.

Pros

Windows Failover Clustering is well suited to keeping critical applications online with only a brief outage in services during the actual failover. In some cases, it will disconnect user applications during the failover. That isn't a good thing, but better than taking the entire application down for a longer period of time to shutdown one server and bring another online.
Windows Failover Clustering can be easily configured to manage individual cluster resources. For example, we use BMC Control-M/Enterprise and Control-M Server. Our gateway resources for distributed systems and mainframe (z/Os), are managed well as individual resources within the cluster, allowing us to take a single resource offline when necessary, without having to take the entire cluster down.
When used in combination with Microsoft PowerShell (now also available to Linux systems), it provide tremendous ability to monitor, query, report, configure and deploy systems in high availability (HA) infrastructures.

Cons

The disconnection of services or users -- brief though it may be -- is a drawback to a seamless failover. The failover process is generally quick, and in many cases invisible to the business end user community, but with the variety of applications and how they interact with Windows Failover Clustering, sometime there is a brief outage (seconds) that does NOT go unnoticed.
Windows Server Failover Clustering in a Hyper-V environment can be a little tricky if the Hyper-V infrastructure is not properly configured at the cluster level for affinity. If you are considering using Windows Failover Clustering in combination with Hyper-V, be sure to set your affinity rules so that both nodes are never on the same host.
Error reporting is quite detailed, if you know where to look. What appears in the Critical Events list for a cluster, and even the Windows Event Logs can lead one to think that Microsoft overlooked that critical area. You have to dig deeper into the Windows logs -- not just the usual three of Application, System and Security -- to get meaningful and helpful detailed error data.

Likelihood to Recommend

Windows ServerFailover Clustering works very well for applications that can sustain a short disconnect when failing over. It works, and works well, in providing single-node applications HA, meaning an active/passive setup. It is not a load balancing solution. Use NLB for that. Another area that it works well is when used in combination with Hyper-V. We set our Hyper-V hosts up as clusters, and those clusters also host clusters for SQL Server and other enterprise class applications like BMC's Control-M/Enterprise and Control-M/Server.

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

7 years of experience

Not the most stable, but so useful

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

August 30, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We started using Failover Clustering a while ago with Windows 2008 Hyper-V. We had a lot of issues (Cluster crash) and upgraded to 2008 R2, 2012 and 2012 R2, with the same issues. However, the cluster may not be a 100% stable, but it helps a lot regarding maintenance and upgrade. Instead of having to shutdown everything, we move the virtual machines from one host to another. When a VM job in the kernel, the full cluster goes down. We than started using Failover clustering for File Share and Scale-Out File-Share to host company files, and VMs (over SMB3). At some point we had one of the host that crashed, and when hard-rebooted, the other host when down because of the failover cluster. Also, when moving the FileShare roles from one host to the other, the disk 'time-out' for a while, that makes the file server very slow. It's not perfect, but it's very useful

Pros

Maintenance - You can move all the roles to the other host, and update/upgrade without interruption.
Integrated - Based for many roles in Windows Server
Easy to use - Not many options, but easy to figure out

Cons

Limited - Not much you can configure or tweak
Unstable - Sometimes dies for no reason
Cluster Validation - It never goes right. Always a lot of errors

Likelihood to Recommend

This is very good to help your availability for your maintenance, but you should not based your full infrastructure on it. Make sure to backup, and monitor.

Tommy Boucher

IT Director in Information Technology at Coveo (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile

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Keeping It Up - Windows Server Failover Clustering for HA Applications

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

September 7, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Windows Failover Clustering is well suited to keeping critical applications online with only a brief outage in services during the actual failover. In some cases, it will disconnect user applications during the failover. That isn't a good thing, but better than taking the entire application down for a longer period of time to shutdown one server and bring another online.
Windows Failover Clustering can be easily configured to manage individual cluster resources. For example, we use BMC Control-M/Enterprise and Control-M Server. Our gateway resources for distributed systems and mainframe (z/Os), are managed well as individual resources within the cluster, allowing us to take a single resource offline when necessary, without having to take the entire cluster down.
When used in combination with Microsoft PowerShell (now also available to Linux systems), it provide tremendous ability to monitor, query, report, configure and deploy systems in high availability (HA) infrastructures.

Cons

The disconnection of services or users -- brief though it may be -- is a drawback to a seamless failover. The failover process is generally quick, and in many cases invisible to the business end user community, but with the variety of applications and how they interact with Windows Failover Clustering, sometime there is a brief outage (seconds) that does NOT go unnoticed.
Windows Server Failover Clustering in a Hyper-V environment can be a little tricky if the Hyper-V infrastructure is not properly configured at the cluster level for affinity. If you are considering using Windows Failover Clustering in combination with Hyper-V, be sure to set your affinity rules so that both nodes are never on the same host.
Error reporting is quite detailed, if you know where to look. What appears in the Critical Events list for a cluster, and even the Windows Event Logs can lead one to think that Microsoft overlooked that critical area. You have to dig deeper into the Windows logs -- not just the usual three of Application, System and Security -- to get meaningful and helpful detailed error data.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

7 years of experience