Windows Server Failover Clustering

A positive impact is that we are able to setup the Windows Server Failover Clustering with just the Standard Windows server and SQL license.

We have hardware redundancy on our SQL server so we won't have to worry about hardware failures on maintenance windows. We can work on the passive node while the database is up on the active node.

We were able to setup a virtualization cluster without having to purchase additional licenses for a test instance.

We are able to utilize MS SQL for some of our more critical infrastructure because of the Windows Failover clustering, since the database was always up as long as one node was up.

No need to invest in a third part product

Support and documentation is everywhere

The learning curve is not steep and is very quick

Reduced Downtime

Time reduction during monthly windows updates

Zero Downtime

Asynchronous updates

Roles deployment

Availability ensured and smooth operations

Easy to setup saving a lot of time

Failover clustering saves the business thousands of dollars when unplanned network outages occur thanks to 24/7 uptime of our critical systems.

Failover Clustering saves the business thousands of dollars for planned outages, not needing a blackout period for our users.

Minimized loss of access to mission critical applications.

Has been the cause of 1 though where the failover didn't happen, had to force the active VM to off to make the fail over happen.

Maintenance windows were dramatically reduced as a result of Failover Clustering implementation, reducing overtime.

Hypervisor failure is not expected to result in the outage of critical services anymore. I suggest doing realistic testing of failover by pulling power cable from one of the nodes.

It is much faster to migrate VMs between the nodes than stand-alone Hypervisors, so less time is spent on VM provisioning.

Windows Server Failover Clustering has enabled us to provide better adherence to SLAs while still keeping company data resources properly protected. For example, patching the operating system, repairing corrupted antivirus definitions, and the like.

Windows Server Failover Clustering also allows us to be more proactive in the area of system resources. If we see from our server monitoring that disk capacity is growing, we can take a node down, add resources to it (disk, CPU, memory) and then bring it back online -- all without the end users being aware that it was being done. In other words, no outage. SLAs remain high and IT management is happier.

Using Windows Server Failover Clustering on Hyper-V hosts enabled us to SIGNIFICANTLY reduct the cost of licensing Microsoft SQL Server, and by that I mean over $100,000 annually.

Comes with Windows, almost Free

Powerful when used with Hyper-V, Storage Spaces, etc Can build a HA Hyper-visors with Dedup/tier Storage

Failover Cluster gives us the power to do updates or hardware upgrade / change without having to create an outage. Which permit us not to work night shifts.

By creating one cluster with all Hyper-V servers, it enabled us to move VMs via live migration between host to balance RAM usage which was time consuming and took a lot of time over network before.

It created some problems that caused us to have to investigate quite some time before finding the cause. We encountered dll locking that caused the Failover Cluster to force-restart a host. Logs are really not the strong point of Failover Cluster Manager, and even Microsoft Support wasn't able to help much. We had to find the problem ourself.