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Creating A WSFC Witness On Azure

Published 2017-08-10 by Kevin Feasel

Jim Donahoe shows how to create a cloud witness for a Windows cluster using Azure:

Well, that is easy to fix, right?  Let’s just spin up a VM in Azure, and host the FSW on that machine.  Problem solved!  Technically yes, that is a viable option.  But, let’s consider the cost of that scenario in the breakdown below:

  1. VM with OS licensed and Disk space allocated for FSW
  2. NSG/Firewall to protect said resource from outside 
  3. VNET

Also, you have to figure in the man hours in configuring all of those things(Let’s say 4 hours total.  Insert your hourly rate here:  Rate x 4 = Setup fee for VM in Azure

Now, here is where Cloud Witness saves the day!  The Cloud Witness WSFC Quorum type will utilize BLOB Storage in Azure to act as the point of arbitration.  Not sure what that means?

There’s a good walkthrough, but it does look quite easy to do, and a simple blob is going to be a lot cheaper than a VM.

Published in Cloud and Clustering