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High Availability (HA) clustering ensures continuous access to applications and data by configuring multiple servers to work together. This approach enables automatic failover during software or hardware failures, significantly improving system reliability and minimizing potential downtime.
This step-by-step guide provides instructions on setting up clustering for high availability on Kamatera. Here, we will learn about how VMs across regions or zones are deployed, configure networking for seamless communication, and establish a failover cluster to safeguard your critical workloads.
To set up high availability clustering, we must have at least 2 servers. Let’s create 2 Windows Servers from the Asia zone, but in 2 different regions (we’ll choose China and Singapore).
2. Navigate to My Cloud on the left pane and select Servers. We currently don’t have any servers running, so let’s deploy one now. From the left pane select Create New Server or use the Create New Server button on the right-hand side.
3. Choose zone: Choose the zone from the following options:
Depending on the zone you select, the available countries will be displayed.
First server: For creating the first server, we used the Asia zone and China region to set up the Windows Server.
4. Choose an image:
Kamatera offers a variety of app and server images to help users set up preconfigured resources. Users can explore options from the following categories:
Choose Server OS images and select Windows Server.
5. In Choose Version, select the latest version of Microsoft Windows Server (2022_standard 64-bit).
6. Upon selecting the version, the license prices are displayed.
7. Toggle the Detailed view button to ‘ON’ to view the detailed description, including the price.
Choose server specs:
For our example, we have selected Type B (General), CPU- 2, RAM- 8 GB, SSD DISC#1- 80 GB.
Toggle the Daily Backup and Management Services button to ‘ON’ according to your requirements.
| Field | Description |
| Type | Type B-General Purpose- Server CPU are assigned to a dedicated physical CPU thread with reserved resources guaranteed.
Type D-Dedicated – -Server CPU are assigned to a dedicated physical CPU Core (2 threads) with reserved resources guaranteed. Type T – Burst – Server CPU are assigned to a dedicated physical CPU thread with reserved resources guaranteed. Exceeding an average usage of 10% will be extra charged for CPUs usage consumption. Type A-Availability- Server CPUs are assigned to a non-dedicated physical CPU thread with no resources guaranteed. Note: More information on CPU types is available on the My Cloud- Pricing page. |
| CPU | Choose the number of vCPUs that will be installed on the server. Type B/T can be configured with upto 104 vCPUs per server. Based on Intel’s latest Xeon Processors, 2.7 GHz+. |
| RAM | Choose the amount of RAM that will be installed on the server. Type B/T/D can be configured with upto 512GB RAM per server. |
| SSD DISK | Choose SSD Storage Size. You can add upto 15 SSD Disk. SSD Storage includes unlimited IOPS and unlimited storage bandwidth, free of charge. |
| Daily Backup | Toggle the switch to enable extended daily backups of your server’s storage to external backup storage. |
| Management Services | Toggle the switch to enable Management Services to the server’s operating system by Kamatera Technical Support Team. |
8. Choose Networking:
| Field | Description |
| Public Internet Network | Check to connect the server to a network interface connected to Public Internet Network. |
| Private Local Network | Check to connect the server to a network interface connected to Private Local Network. |
| Field | Description |
| NIC #1 | Select WAN from the options available in the drop-down menu.
WAN LAN New LAN Select auto from the options available in the drop-down menu. Auto Network Select auto from the options available in the drop-down menu. Auto IP |
| WAN Traffic | Select 5000 GB per month/ on 10 Gbit per second port. |
9. Advanced configuration:
Hide – If the user wants to hide the advanced configuration.
Show – If you want to see the advanced configuration.
| Field | Description |
| Install Script | Enter the script here to execute once the server is created.
Note:For Windows system use Power Shell. |
| Keep Server On Failure | Do not terminate server if Start up Script or Provisioning Fails |
| Server Notes | Enter any server notes to be noted. |
| Tags | Select the Tags from the drop-down menu and click Add. |
10. Finalize settings:
Finalize settings by setting the password, re-validating it, selecting the number of servers, specifying the server’s name, and enabling the Power On Servers option.
| Field | Description |
| Password | Select password
Password allowed characters: a-z, A-Z,0-9 !@#$^&*()~ and must need the following requirements: At least 14 characters At most 32 characters At least one lowercase character At least one upper case character At least one number Includes allowed characters only |
| Validate | Re-enter the password to validate. |
| Servers | Select the number of servers the user wants. |
| Name # 1 | Enter the name of the server. |
| Power On Servers | Switch on the toggle button to see the details |
11. Billing Cycle and Pricing:
Once the user enters the details in Finalize Settings, they can select either the Monthly Billing Cycle or Hourly Billing, depending on their requirements.
After choosing the billing cycle, click on CREATE SERVER.
12. The server will be added to the Tasks Queue.
13. Once the server is created, you will see the status as ‘success.’
Then the server will appear under Server Management.
Click Open, and a new screen will open.
14. On the right side, the Overview of Windows Server that you just created is displayed.
Click CONNECT, and a new screen will open.
15. On the new screen, under the Connection Credentials section: Connection Type, Username and Password are displayed.
Under the Remote Console section, click Open Remote Console.
A new tab opens, connecting to the new server and displaying the Server Manager Dashboard.
16. Second Windows Server:
In Windows Server features, the Failover Clustering feature provides high availability and reliability for applications, services, or resources by grouping multiple servers into a cluster. If one server in the cluster fails, another server automatically takes over, minimizing downtime and ensuring continuity.
Let’s enable failover clustering for the first server.
17. From the start menu, type Server Manager and select it.
18. Click Manage and select Add Roles and Features.
19. When the Add Roles and Features wizard opens, on the Before you begin page, click Next.
20. On the Select Installation type page, select Role-based or feature-based installation and click Next.
21. On the Select Destination Server page, click Next.
22. On the Select Server Roles page, click Next.
23. On the Select Features page, click Failover Clustering.
24. A pop-up window opens, click Add Features.
25. Once you add features, Failover Clustering box is checked. Click Next.
26. You can check the box next to Restart the destination server automatically if required, or you can manually restart the server.
Click Install.
27. Follow the above steps (steps 17- 26) to add Failover Clustering feature to your second Windows Server.
Once done, restart all the servers to ensure the role or feature is configured correctly.
In the screen below, you will see Failover Clustering feature is installed for the second server. Once installation is finished, click Close.
Validating the cluster configuration is a critical prerequisite when establishing a Windows Server Failover Cluster. Microsoft’s Failover Cluster Manager includes a Validation Wizard that comprehensively checks hardware, software, network, and storage components to ensure they meet high availability requirements and are properly configured.
28. Ensure the Failover Clustering feature is installed on all the servers you want to add to the cluster.
Click Open Remote Console to log in to one of the servers where the Failover Clustering feature is installed. From the start menu, open Failover Cluster Manager and press Enter.
29. In the Actions pane on the right, Click Failover Cluster Manager, and select Validate Configuration from the drop-down menu.
30. When Validate a Configuration Wizard opens, on the Before you begin page, click Next.
31. On the Select Servers or a Cluster page,
Enter the name of the servers you want to validate or click Browse to locate and select servers.
32. Click Add after adding each server.
If you get a message “The computer server-name (for example, CWM8115) could not be reached” as shown in the screen below, that means, your servers are not pointing to each other or domain or workgroup. Then follow the below steps.
33. From the start menu, type Command Prompt and select it.
Command: hostname
This command will give your server’s name (here, it is CWM2867).
34. Run the below command, to know the configuration of your system.
Command: ipconfig /all
Check IPv4, Subnet mask, Default Gateway. Make sure that this IPv4 address is not shared by other domains.
35. Run the command below to know about the Domain or Workgroup.
Command: systeminfo | findstr /B /C:”Domain”
36. Check both the servers have the same configuration, either Domain or Workgroup. From the start menu, type System properties and select it.
37. Click Advanced System settings.
38. When the System Properties pop-up window opens, click Change.
39. The Computer Name/Domain Changes pop-up window will open. Here, select Domain and enter your domain name (ie, example.com) and click OK.
Repeat the same process for second server, enter the same domain name that you have entered for the first server.
40. For demo purposes, we are not using Domain. We are only using Workgroup.
In the System properties pop-up window, click Change.
41. Here, we are selecting the Workgroup for the first server and click OK.
Repeat the same process for the second server (select Workgroup for second server also).
42. Run the command below to find out the Workstation domain.
Command: net config workstation
In the screen below, you will see Workstation domain as WORKGROUP. Repeat this step for the second server. Make sure that the first and second servers have the Workstation domain as WORKGROUP.
43. In the first server, go to C drive->Windows->System32->drivers->etc->hosts.
Right-click on hosts and select notepad to open the file.
45.126.124.53 CWM2867
45.130.164.75 CWM4093
Save the file. Repeat the process, open hosts file in the second server and add entries for each server, mapping their IP addresses to hostnames.
45.126.124.53 CWM2867
45.130.164.75 CWM4093
Save the file.
45. In the hosts file, before adding the entries for each server, map their IP addresses to hostnames:
From the first server, if you try to ping the second server, we get a message “Ping request could not find host CWM4093. Please check the name and try again”
In the hosts file, after adding entries for each server, mapping their IP addresses to hostnames:
Now, from the first server, if you try to ping the second server, it will respond as shown in the screen below.
46. Now, go to Control Panel-> System and Security-> Windows Defender Firewall.
Click Advanced Settings.
Repeat the same process for the second server.
47. Click Windows Defender Firewall Properties. Repeat the same process for the second server.
48. Make the following selections for each tab:
Domain Profile:
In Inbound connections, select Allow.
and Outbound connections, select Allow.
Click Apply.
Click OK.
Private Profile:
In Inbound connections, select Allow.
and Outbound connections, select Allow.
Click Apply.
Click OK.
Public profile:
In Inbound connections, select Allow.
and Outbound connections, select Allow.
Click Apply.
Click OK.
Repeat the same process for the second server.
49. From the left pane, under Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security, select Inbound Rules.
In the middle pane, check if the below inbound rules are enabled or not.
If the rules are not enabled, then select the inbound rule in the middle pane and click Enable Rule from the left pane.
Repeat the same for the second server.
50. Open the second server, and run the below command
Command: ipconfig /all
Ensure that the IP address, subnet mask, gateway, and DNS server are configured correctly.
51. Verify that the second server can reach the DNS Server by running the below command.
Command: nslookup google.com
Ensure no other devices are using the same IP address as the second server.
52. Now, from the start menu type Failover Cluster Manager,
From Actions in the left pane, click Validate a configuration Wizard.
On the Before you begin page, click Next.
On the Select Servers or a Cluster page, click Add to add both servers (CWM2867 and CWM4093). Now, you will see both the servers can be reached.
Click Next.
53. On the Testing Options page, select
Note: It is always better to select the Recommended option. So, here Run all tests (Recommended) is selected.
Once the option is selected, click Next.
54. On the Confirmation page, review the list of tests to be run. Then, click Next to start the validation process.
55. On the Summary page, results are displayed once the tests are completed.
56. If any tests fail, click on View Report to view the issues. Resolve issues like hardware and configuration settings and rerun the validation wizard to confirm the fixes.
57. Once the validation is successful, return to Failover Cluster Manager. From the Actions pane on the right, click Create Cluster to proceed with cluster creation.
58. In the Create Cluster Wizard, on the Before you begin page, click Next.
59. On the Select Servers page, enter the names of all Servers/Nodes and click Add to add more servers.
Click Next.
60. On the Access Point for Administering the Cluster page, give a unique name to the cluster (for e.g., ExampleCluster). If required, you can give a static IP address to the cluster. Make sure that IP address is in the same subnet as the nodes and does not conflict with other devices.
Check the boxes next to Networks, and assign Address as shown in the screen below.
Click Next.
61. On the Confirmation page, confirm the cluster name, nodes, and IP address and click Next to proceed.
62. On the Summary page, Click Finish to create the cluster and wait for the process to complete.
63. Once the cluster is created, it will appear in the right pane, under the Cluster Core Resources section, and in the Actions pane on the right.
64. In real time, if the first server is down, then the second server automatically works. To see how it works, right-click on the first server IP Address, choose More Actions and select Simulate Failover.
Verify the cluster automatically fails over to another node without issues.
65. On the below screen, you will see the status of the first server became offline and second server became online.
Click Add Node from the left pane to add more servers/nodes and follow the instructions on the wizard.
66. From the right pane, click on your cluster name (that is, ExampleCluster), select Nodes from the drop-down menu. Then, you will see the Status of the 2 servers/nodes is Up.
67. Ensure that:
You will be able to add servers only if all these steps are completed successfully.
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