Creating a Cluster
Once the validation process has been run, the next step is to create the cluster, which
is simple. At the end of the validation, there was a check box option, Create The
Cluster Now Using The Validated Nodes. Keep that selected, and when you click
Finish, the Create Cluster Wizard will launch. If you did not select the Create Cluster
option, simply run the Create Cluster action, and the only additional step that you will
need to perform is to specify the servers that will be joining the cluster. The only
information that you need to create the cluster is a name for the cluster and an IP
address if you don’t wish to use DHCP. Perform the following steps to complete the
cluster process:
1 . Click Next on the introduction page of the Create Cluster Wizard.
2 . Enter the NetBIOS name that will be used to manage/access the cluster. If DHCP
is used for the network adapters in the cluster servers, DHCP will automatically be
used. If DHCP is not used, an IP address should be configured. Click Next.
3 . The confirmation screen is displayed. Leave the Add All Eligible Storage To The
Cluster check box selected, because this will automatically add all storage that is
accessible to all nodes in the cluster and that supports being clustered. Click Next.
4 . The cluster is created and a summary displayed. When the report is visible, review
it and click Finish.A computer object would have been created in Active Directory automatically and
named the same as the cluster name specified during cluster creation. By default, it
will be created in the Computers container.
Note that, by default, the Create Cluster process selected the smallest cluster disk that
was 512MB or greater, and initialized and formatted for the disk witness, whether
there was an even or odd number of nodes. If you wish to change the witness, use the
More Actions ➣ Configure Cluster Quorum Settings and change it as previously
described in this chapter.