Is Windows Failover Cluster supported on Azure? YES!

Posted on 14/07/2015 by kvaes

Is WSFC (Windows Server Failover Cluster) supported on Azure?

YES

You can find the official support statement at the following location : https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2721672

BUT

Though be aware that there are some considerations…

Requirements for Windows Server Failover Cluster:

Must Run Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2

For Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 R2, KB2854082 is required on all nodes

Must use a single-cluster IP address resource

Must use Azure hosted storage using one of the following options:
Application-level replication for non-shared storage

Volume-level replication for non-shared storage

ExpressRoute for remote iSCSI Target shared block storage

Azure Files for shared file storage

High availability and disaster recovery for SQL Server in Azure virtual machines

Can be a third-party clustered role
Note Third-party clustered roles are supported by the vendor

HOWTO

Now how do we do this in reality? (Thanks to Thomas for the links)

So what will your challenges be? First of all the storage replication, as it is not possible to share disks between VMs in a read/write manner. After that you should be carefull with your network design due to the different types/levels of IP.

Anyhow, I hope this article helped you on track for your first WSFC deployment on Azure!

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4 thoughts on “Is Windows Failover Cluster supported on Azure? YES!”

Mayank says:

10/03/2016 at 14:16

Thanks for the information. In the above links (Setting up Windows Failover (part 1) : there is no mention of Azure File Service). Can you shed more light on this please.
Objective: Setting up PKI Server in HA on Azure.

Reply
kvaes says:

10/03/2016 at 15:15

For the Azure File Service, best thing is to start here ; https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/storage/files/ Or here ; https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-dotnet-how-to-use-files/
It is basically something totally different…

PKI is supported on Azure ; https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2721672
Then it bares down to the two guides as supplied.

Reply
1. Jonathan Pritchard (@jrpritchard) says:
  
  08/01/2017 at 20:47
  
  A nice summary. However isn’t listing Azure Files misleading? As if you mount a VHD from Azure Files it is locked to the individual VM. From my understanding that necessitates some other 3rd party block-level replication technology like SIOS.
  
  If I’m mistaken, I’d be happy to learn that you can use Azure Files 🙂
  
  Reply
  1. kvaes says:
    
    08/01/2017 at 20:55
    
    My advice ; Do not use Azure Files (at this time of writing) for HA purposes.
    
    Apart from that, I see it as a candidate for application integration purposes. Not so much for typical the system / infrastructure / operational use cases.
    
    When building a cluster in Azure, you’ll need to look at things like SIOS to achieve a “shared storage” (where it’s synchronized volumes for SIOS actually).