Failover clustering isn’t exactly fussy about what networks it uses. That can be troublesome, especially when people are buying servers with lots and lots of NICs. Document everything, and only use what you need. Here’s just a few tips:
Tip #1
Label your network connections with something descriptive such as “Parent”, “CSV”, “VM1”, “LM”, or “iSCSI1”, instead of the useless “Local Area Connection 2”. This allows you to track what is doing what.
Tip #2
Disable unused NICs. They just clutter up stuff all over the place. And they can cause a nightmare in when they are patched into DHCP networks.
Tip #3
Do not disable IPv6, even if you have no IPv6 on your network. MS will support you, but it’s recommended that IPv6 is left bound to all the physical NICs in your cluster nodes. I recently had that discussion with MCS on a customer site. A reach out to Redmond gave us this recommendation.
Tip #4
Disable everything except for the Hyper-V switching protocol on the host NICs that are used for VM networking once you verify that they are patched into the right network(s). This is to prevent the host being a n accidental participant on a guest’s network if that VLAN has a DHCP scope. It also keeps things tidy.
Tip #5
Unbind everything except for TCP on the iSCSI network (which should be a dedicated network for iSCSI with dedicated switches). I found that you can get some weird funnies like CSV suddenly not cooperating if you don’t.
How about Link-Layer Mapper & Responder for Cluster Heartbeat, Live Migration & Host Management dedicated networks? Should these be disabled also?
do not disable “Client for Microsoft Networks” and “File and Printer Sharing” on NICs used for Live-Migration and CSV Traffic!
Tip #5 i don’t quite understand, i’ve seen many that say the opposite and have noticed that CSV did NOT work properly when I had other protocols unbound on the iSCSI NICs. You sure on that one?
Yes – very sure. Those others you have read have probably not taken the step to set the CSV network as the network with the lowest metric. In that case, any network, such as the iSCSI one could end up being used for redirected IO/CSV traffic. I’ve seen that myself in a lab when I’ve not used those powershell cmdlets to force CSV onto the right private network.