Windows Server® 2012 Unleashed

Choosing Applications for Failover Clusters

Many applications can run on failover clusters, but it is important to choose and test those applications thoroughly. Although many can run on failover clusters, the application might not be optimized for clustering or may not be supported by the software vendor or Microsoft when deployed on Windows Server 2012 failover clusters. Work with the vendor to determine requirements, functionality, and limitations (if any). Other major criteria that should be met to ensure that an application can benefit and adapt to running on a cluster are the following:

• Because clustering is IP based, the cluster application or applications must use an IP-based protocol.

• Applications that require access to local databases ...