Failover Cluster - Difference between "Drain Node" and manually move roles to other node

Question

_{Monday, February 12, 2018 12:36 PM | 1 vote}

Hi guys

I'am asking myself following question about the Fileserver Failover Cluster.
When it's time for a maintenance window:

What is the difference between drain node
(https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2013/08/23/how-to-properly-shutdown-a-failover-cluster-or-a-node/)

and move the running roles from one server to another from the cluster before shutting down the node?

What do you recommend?

All replies (3)

_{Monday, February 12, 2018 1:34 PM ✅Answered | 1 vote}

When all you have a is a single role running on a cluster, the end result is pretty much the same, but the drain accomplishes more.

Drain will move all roles while at the same time pausing the cluster node.  All done with a single command.  Performing the same function manually would require moving each individual role and then pausing the cluster node.

Then when the maintenance is complete and you want to bring the node back into operation, a single Resume command will unpause the node and move the originally moved roles back.  Again, manually would require multiple commands.

Another benefit of the drain is that it will honor Preferences.  Performing the same function manually would require that you read the defined preferences and perform the move accordingly.

Bottom line is that in a small cluster, there is not a lot of difference in what can be readily accomplished.  But as the cluster gets more and more complicated, the process is exponentially more complicated to perform manually than to use drain.

tim

_{Tuesday, February 13, 2018 1:19 PM ✅Answered}

"it will move the roles to early from the other host to the booting node(preferred node)?"

Not sure what you mean here.  Drain moves roles off the targeted node to other nodes of the cluster.

"So you won't not get any alerts?"

Depends upon what you have configured as alerts.  Entries will be made to the event log stating that the role has been moved.  If you have the movement of a role as an alert, it will alert.

tim

_{Monday, February 12, 2018 4:12 PM}

Thanks Tim for your detailed answer.

So there's no Problem with drain, that it will move the roles to early from the other host to the booting node(preferred node)? So you won't not get any alerts?