Configure Cluster Quorum NodeWeight Settings

Applies to: SQL Server

This topic describes how to configure NodeWeight settings for a member node in a Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) cluster. NodeWeight settings are used during quorum voting to support disaster recovery and multi-subnet scenarios for Always On availability groups and SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances.

Before You Start

Prerequisites

This feature is supported only in Windows Server 2008 or later versions.

Important

In order to use NodeWeight settings, the following hotfix must be applied to all servers in the WSFC cluster:

KB2494036: A hotfix is available to let you configure a cluster node that does not have quorum votes in Windows Server 2008 and in Windows Server 2008 R2

Tip

If this hotfix is not installed, the examples in this topic will return empty or NULL values for NodeWeight.

Security

The user must be a domain account that is member of the local Administrators group on each node of the WSFC cluster.

Using Powershell

To configure NodeWeight settings
  1. Start an elevated Windows PowerShell via Run as Administrator.

  2. Import the FailoverClusters module to enable cluster commandlets.

  3. Use the Get-ClusterNode object to set the NodeWeight property for each node in the cluster.

  4. Output the cluster node properties in a readable format.

Example (Powershell)

The following example changes the NodeWeight setting to remove the quorum vote for the "AlwaysOnSrv1" node, and then outputs the settings for all nodes in the cluster.

Import-Module FailoverClusters  
  
$node = "AlwaysOnSrv1"  
(Get-ClusterNode $node).NodeWeight = 0  
  
$cluster = (Get-ClusterNode $node).Cluster  
$nodes = Get-ClusterNode -Cluster $cluster  
  
$nodes | Format-Table -property NodeName, State, NodeWeight  

Using Cluster.exe

Note

The cluster.exe utility is deprecated in the Windows Server 2008 R2 release. Please use PowerShell with Failover Clustering for future development. The cluster.exe utility will be removed in the next release of Windows Server. For more information, see Mapping Cluster.exe Commands to Windows PowerShell Cmdlets for Failover Clusters.

To configure NodeWeight settings
  1. Start an elevated Command Prompt via Run as Administrator.

  2. Use cluster.exe to set NodeWeight values.

Example (Cluster.exe)

The following example changes the NodeWeight value to remove the quorum vote of the "AlwaysOnSrv1" node in the "Cluster001" cluster.

cluster.exe Cluster001 node AlwaysOnSrv1 /prop NodeWeight=0  

Related Content

See Also

WSFC Quorum Modes and Voting Configuration (SQL Server)
View Cluster Quorum NodeWeight Settings
Failover Cluster Cmdlets in Windows PowerShell Listed by Task Focus