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In this demonstration, we're going to deploy a Windows Server failover cluster.

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You're looking at the desktop of one of my Windows

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Server 2022 domain member servers.

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Let me open up Edge here, and you can see I have Windows Admin

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Center installed on this machine. And what I want to do, this

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machine is configured as a gateway.

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Let's just go ahead and add in connectivity here.

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Note that in Admin Center, we have seamless connectivity to other servers

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in our domain environment. We can add connections directly to server

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clusters, as well as going up into Azure. Now,

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I'm going to choose the first servers option, and I'm

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going to bring in the other node here, mem2.timw.info.

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I'm just going to do a two‑node cluster, and we're going to use an

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Azure cloud witness to serve as a tie‑breaking vote.

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So this would allow us to lose one node in the cluster

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and still keep the cluster going.

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Let me provide credentials here to authenticate to that

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machine, and we'll add with credentials.

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Great! So, let me do this installation with PowerShell.

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Now you know that Windows Admin Center, actually, we could

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do a lot of the work there.

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We also could go to good old Server Manager. However,

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because you're so likely to see quite a bit of PowerShell on your AZ‑801

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and AZ‑800 exams, probably more 800, it's still important. And really, in

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the name of infrastructure as code and automation, I feel most

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comfortable doing it this way anyway. So what you're seeing now is my

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Visual Studio Code instance. I have a script file called clustering‑final

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that I include in the course files for your reference. And we're going to

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start here by installing the appropriate server roles on mem1 and mem2.

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You can see that in order to support failover clustering,

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scale out file server, and Hyper‑V highly available VMs, I'm bringing in here

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on my feature list variable, Hyper‑V, Failover‑Clustering,

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Data‑Center‑Bridging. I want to install the Windows PowerShell clustering

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module, Hyper‑V, PowerShell, and the file server tools as well.

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And as you can see, I'm just creating variables that contain arrays of the

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server names on line 4, the features on line 5. So let me right‑click and run

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these in my integrated terminal below, and then I'm going to do an

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Invoke‑Command against that ServerList, and I'm going to throw in that

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Featurelist, so let me run that selection. Now I've put in the ‑Restart flag

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here because Hyper‑V, I know for a fact, is going to require a reboot. I don't

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remember about failover clustering, but either way, these machines are going

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to go down for a reboot momentarily. While we're waiting though, let me walk

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you through some of the other PowerShell code on the script. You can see on

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line 12, we can validate the cluster by using the Test‑Cluster command.

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Now that command is going to be part of the RSAT cluster in PowerShell

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feature that we're installing up here on line 5.

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Now there are a number of tests you can use to validate the cluster.

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The ones that I'm including here, obviously I want Storage

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Spaces Direct, but I'm also including Inventory,

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Network, and System configuration. And if we have any errors,

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we will need to resolve those before we can bring up the cluster.

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Now surprisingly, I was expecting the machines to restart automatically.

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So let me do an Invoke‑Command here against the ComputerName's mem1, mem2.

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And then for my ScriptBlock,

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I'm just going to do a Restart‑Computer ‑Force, and then I will

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see you at the other side of this reboot.

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Okay,

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we're back from the reboot on mem1, so let me bring up VS Code

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again, and let's pick up where we left off. We're going to run

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Test‑Cluster, and it looks like it bombed out.

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That's because ServerList dropped out of scope of my session here.

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So let me rerun and repopulate the ServerList variable, and

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then let me right‑click and run this test.

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And while this is running, again,

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let's proceed with the code, and I want to give you some

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additional tips and learning suggestions as we go on.

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The output of this test is going to be an HTML file, so that's

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going to be a very useful reference for us as administrators.

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Once we've resolved any errors,

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warnings are okay, but errors are not, we're ready to create the cluster.

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So as you can see on line 15, we'll run New‑Cluster, give

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the cluster a hostname, and that will be a fully

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qualified domain name, in my case, az801cluster.timw.info.

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The nodes are going to be, again, the ServerList array.

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I'm specifically doing no storage here because we're going to add in Storage

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Spaces Direct later in the course, and I do want to reserve an IPv4 address

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on my LAN for this cluster. And we will find that the cluster's name is

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registered in our Active Directory DNS.

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Then on line 18, notice that I'm setting a ClusterQuorum here.

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I'll show you more about quorum configuration later in the course. But if

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you've got access to a general purpose storage account,

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it's pretty easy to create a cloud witness, as long as you have the

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connectivity to it. You can see Set‑ClusterQuorum ‑CloudWitness, and then we

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have the name of our Azure Storage account and then one of the two access keys

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that are used to protect the storage account.

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Now, be very careful about exposing an access key in plaintext like I'm

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doing here. I would not, for instance, commit this ps1 file to source

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control unless I did something about that access key.

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I could just null it out by doing open and closed quotes, or I could do a call

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to Azure Key Vault and fetch the key from there, for example,

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we don't want to have anything secret accessible in

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plaintext for any length of time, for sure.

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And then going beyond that, once our cluster is stood up, we'll then do a

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little bit of monitoring. And there, I just want you to remember that

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Performance Monitor is our built‑in monitoring tool in Windows Server, and then

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the Azure analog would be Log Analytics and Azure Monitor. And then as far as

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programmatic monitoring and administration,

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there is the old school Cluster.exe executable, but the Microsoft

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engineers have done a pretty good job of mapping those old Cluster.exe

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commands to PowerShell. And PowerShell being an object‑based automation

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language is able to give us much more wide spectrum control and

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visibility than these old compiled executables. So we'll finish by just

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taking a look at a couple of the Get commands. Now like I've mentioned

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before,

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let me mention it again that the way the exams will test your PowerShell,

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in all likelihood, is you will have code given to you in context like a

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script file, and periodically through the code you'll have active

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components like drop‑down list controls that you will then select and

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choose from a series of options.

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So this is a way for Microsoft to validate your skills.

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Okay, so we can see here that my cluster was conditionally approved.

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That must mean that there's some warnings.

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So let me select the file path. Whoa! The highlight

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colors are really messed up here.

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Let me see if this will work. Paste that in.

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Yeah, it looks like it will. Good.

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So let me bring up that report, which as you can see gets stored

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under your Users profile, AppData\Local\Temp.

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So you want to save this file somewhere else if you want to keep it. Now

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let me zoom in so you can have a better time reading it.

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So it looks like we've got Success for Inventory, Warning for

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Network, Success for Storage Spaces Direct.

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That's what I was most concerned with, so I'm glad.

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And then we have Warning for System Configuration.

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Let's see, is there any other warning? Warning for Validate

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Network. Storage Spaces is everything.

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And then it looks like the warning for System Config was that not all of my

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device drivers are digitally signed, which is a concern, but it's not a deal

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breaker at this point. To come up to Network,

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it looks like Validate Network Communication was a

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problem, so what's this saying? Again, this is a best

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practice, but it's not a showstopper.

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It's basically saying that my nodes are reachable by each

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other through only one network interface each.

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So it's recommending this is bringing in issues like NIC teaming and multi‑path

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I/O so that you have redundant connectivity between your cluster nodes and also

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between each cluster node and your shared storage.

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Now, that's not as big of an issue because, as I've mentioned several times,

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we're going to be doing Storage Spaces Direct and not SAN, iSCSI or Fibre

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Channel storage, all right? So as far as monitoring,

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like I said,

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well, we first have to create the cluster. So let me come down and clear

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my terminal screen, and let's run line 15 here to create az801cluster

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using the ServerList array. I'm going to give it a static address. To set

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the stage, let me see if I've got the DNS management console on this

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system. I don't think I do, no.

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So I'm going to have to do a little bit of RSAT work to get that going.

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And what we can also do is bring up Windows Admin Center. Let me

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authenticate in as a domain administrator, and let's connect into my mem1

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node. And just while we're waiting here, let me do a search in the Tools

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list for Roles & features. And unfortunately,

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there's not a search filter in here.

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This is a long list too, unfortunately.

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So we've got Remote Server Administration Tools, and we've got Role

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Administration Tools, and I'm looking for AD DS tools like, okay,

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so that should give the Active Directory Users and Computers and all that.

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That's fine.

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I also want to bring in my DNS Server Tools, and it looks

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like I've got Hyper‑V already installed.

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So, the reason I'm showing you this is because Windows Admin

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Center features on both AZ‑801 and AZ‑800, so it's really not

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optional that you get familiar with it.

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We go over Windows Admin Center installation and maintenance in AZ‑800. In AZ‑801, it's just assumed that you're using it, okay?