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rohansuresh
Contributor
Contributor

Supported storage for Windows failover cluster 2012 on ESX 5.1?

While validating cluster configuration for 2012 failover cluster, We are seeing a warning for the test "validate storage spaces persistent reservation"

Microsoft has clarified a month back that this warning is valid only if underlying disk is on “storage spaces”.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2013/05/24/10421247.aspx

On the other hand, ESX 5.1 release notes indicates a known issue:

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Windows Server 2012 Failover Clustering is not supported
If you try to create a cluster for Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2012, and select to run validation tests, the wizard completes the validation tests with warnings, and after that returns to running the validation tests again. The wizard in the Windows Server 2012 guest operating system does not continue to the cluster creation stage.

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VMware document on “Guidelines for Supported Configurations” indicates that Windows Server 2012 failover clustering is not supported with ESXi-provided shared storage (such as RDMs or virtual disks). But it is supported on In-guest SMB and in-guest iSCSI.

Guidelines for Supported Configurations : http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=103795...

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But this is not true in our case and wizard allow creating cluster and works well with shared virtual disks.Other than the warning related to storage space, Is there any reason VMware does not support shared virtual disks? Please clarify?

-Suresh

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3 Replies
jdptechnc
Expert
Expert

I have no insider knowledge, but I think they are not officially supporting it probably because they haven't gotten it to work consistently enough in Server 2012 to certify it as being compatible and supportable in their solution.  I imagine it will be officially supported using virtual disks at some point in the future.

Please consider marking as "helpful", if you find this post useful. Thanks!... IT Guy since 12/2000... Virtual since 10/2006... VCAP-DCA #2222
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rohansuresh
Contributor
Contributor

Correct. More specific details should help us and our customers...

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NagangoudaPatil
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

As per my previous experience, storage team has to enable one feature on storage end, after enabling that feature you will be able to present shared disk to VM's without any issues and run cluster validation without any warnings.

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