Home > Workload Solutions > SQL Server > White Papers > Deploying Dell EMC SRDF/Metro Smart DR with Microsoft SQL Server for Physical and Virtual Environments > Setting up Microsoft failover cluster with SRDF/Metro
Microsoft failover cluster is a high availability environment of independent servers and virtual machines. There are specific hardware and software compatibility requirements that will ensure your ability to add nodes to the cluster. Microsoft failover cluster also offers cluster validation with an extensive set of tests that verify network, storage, and other requirements for proper functioning of the cluster. Microsoft SQL Server failover cluster also verifies cluster validation results prior to installation to ensure that setting up the SQL Server cluster role goes smoothly. Cluster nodes need access to shared disk resources for node health checks. When a cluster node fails, Microsoft failover cluster service will pass the control over to a surviving node to resume cluster roles on those nodes. Microsoft failover cluster service can move cluster roles to different nodes for load balancing. SRDF/Metro is an active/active high availability solution that makes distributed shared disk resources available to the application. Thus, Microsoft failover cluster nodes can access stretched disk resources regardless of whether the cluster node is running on the R1 side or the R2 side of the SRDF/Metro RDF group. This section will explain setting up Microsoft failover cluster using SRDF/Metro using the following steps: