Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Failover Cluster Services (FCS)

FCS could actually be considered a part of the basic HA foundation components described earlier, except that it’s possible to build a high-availability system without it (for example, a system that uses numerous redundant hardware components and disk mirroring or RAID for its disk subsystem). Microsoft has made FCS the cornerstone of its clustering capabilities, and FCS is utilized by applications that are cluster-enabled. A prime example of a cluster-enabled technology is Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

FCS is the advanced Windows operating system configuration that defines and manages between 2 and 16 servers as “nodes” in a cluster. These nodes are aware of each other and can be set up to take over cluster-aware ...