Clustered role 'Cluster Group' has exceeded its failover threshold.

Question

Hello.
I’m hoping to get some help with a cluster issue I’m having using Windows Storage Server 2012.
When the cluster is created my Cluster Core Resources are all happy and online.
I can more the Cluster Name using “move Core Cluster Resources” between the two nodes without any problems.
If I select ‘Simulate Failure’ on the IP Address resource, it works the first time
If I do it again shortly after it fails and I get an Event ID 1254, 1205 and 1069.
Event ID 1254
Clustered role 'Cluster Group' has exceeded its failover threshold. 
It has exhausted the configured number of failover attempts within the failover period of time allotted to it and will be left in a failed state. 
No additional attempts will be made to bring the role online or fail it over to another node in the cluster. 
Please check the events associated with the failure.  After the issues causing the failure are resolved the role can be brought online manually or the cluster may attempt to bring it online again after the restart delay period.
Event ID 1205
The Cluster service failed to bring clustered service or application 'Cluster Group' completely online or offline. One or more resources may be in a failed state. This may impact the availability of the clustered service or application.
Event ID 1069
Cluster resource 'Cluster IP Address' of type 'IP Address' in clustered role 'Cluster Group' failed.
Based on the failure policies for the resource and role, the cluster service may try to bring the resource online on this node or move the group to another node of the cluster and then restart it. 
Check the resource and group state using Failover Cluster Manager or the Get-ClusterResource Windows PowerShell cmdlet.
Basically I’m trying to simulate a network failure to make sure the failover kicks in.
If I click on it and ‘Bring Online’ it comes up fine.
Where do I find this Threshold Policy and set it to initiate failover if the IP Address resources fails?
Thank you in advance for your help.

Answer 1

Hi,
The failover threshold is the number of times the group can fail over within the number of hours specified by the failover period. For example, if a group failover threshold is set to "5" and its failover period to "3," the clustering software stops attempting
to bring the group online and leaves the resources within the group in their current state. For example, if the IP Address resource is brought online but the Network Name resource fails, the group is left offline, but the IP Address resource is left online.
To configure thresholds for a resource:
Right-click the cluster resource and then select 'Propereties'
Click 'Advanced'
Select 'Do not restart' if the cluster service should not attempt to restart. Restart is the default
If 'Restart' is selected:
Affect the Group: uncheck to prevent a failure of the selected resource from causing the Server group to failover
Threshold: number of times the cluster service will attempt to restart the resource, and period is the amount of time in seconds between retries
Do not modify the 'LooksAlive' and 'IsAlive' settings
Unless necessary, do not alter the 'Pending Timeout'. This is the amount of time the resource is either in the online or pending or offline pending states before the the cluster service puts it in either offline or failed state
For more information please refer to following MS articles:
Windows Failover Clustering Overview
http://blogs.technet.com/b/rob/archive/2008/05/07/failover-clustering.aspx
Tuning Failover Cluster Network Thresholds
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2012/11/21/10370765.aspx
Failover cluster (group) maximum failures limit
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/arvindsh/archive/2012/03/09/failover-cluster-group-maximum-failures-limit.aspx
Lawrence
TechNet Community Support