Audience
IT administrators and system architects requiring a tool to build, manage, and maintain high‑availability and scalable server workloads
About Windows Server Failover Clustering
Failover Clustering in Windows Server (and Azure Local) enables a group of independent servers to work together to improve availability and scalability for clustered roles (formerly known as clustered applications and services). These nodes are interconnected via hardware and software, and if one node fails, another assumes its roles through an automated failover process. Clustered roles are actively monitored and, if they stop functioning, are restarted or migrated to maintain service continuity. The feature also supports Cluster Shared Volumes (CSVs), which provide a unified, distributed namespace and consistent shared storage access across nodes, reducing service disruptions. Typical uses include high‑availability file shares, SQL Server instances, and Hyper‑V virtual machines. Failover Clustering is supported on Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025, and in Azure Local environments.
Other Popular Alternatives & Related Software
NEC EXPRESSCLUSTER
NEC EXPRESSCLUSTER is a high-availability software solution designed to maximize business continuity and disaster recovery while preventing data loss. It supports recovery from hardware, network, and application failures without requiring costly shared storage disks. The software boasts a proven track record with over 17,000 customers worldwide and more than 30,000 cluster systems deployed over 20 years. EXPRESSCLUSTER supports various applications, including major databases like Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle DB, email servers, ERP systems, virtualization platforms, and cloud services such as AWS and Microsoft Azure. Key features include automatic failover, real-time data mirroring, and comprehensive failure detection across system resources. NEC’s software helps businesses reduce downtime, save costs, and ensure reliable IT operations across many industries globally.
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SIOS DataKeeper
SIOS DataKeeper is a host‑based, block‑level replication solution that delivers real‑time, synchronous or asynchronous redundancy for Windows Server environments, integrating seamlessly with Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC). It enables "SANless" clusters—eliminating dependency on shared‑storage arrays—by replicating data across local, virtual, or cloud servers, including VMware, Hyper‑V, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, while offering optimized performance without requiring hardware accelerators or compression devices. Once installed, it provides a new SIOS DataKeeper Volume resource in WSFC, supporting geographically dispersed clusters via cross‑subnet failover and configurable heartbeat parameters. Built-in WAN optimization and efficient compression maximize bandwidth use over local and wide‑area networks.
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JS7 JobScheduler
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Platforms
- Cloud scheduling from Containers for Docker®, Kubernetes®, OpenShift® etc.
- True multi-platform scheduling on premises for Windows®, Linux®, AIX®, Solaris®, macOS® etc.
- Hybrid use for cloud and on premises
User Interface
- Modern, no-code GUI for inventory management, monitoring and control with web browsers
- Near real-time information brings immediate visibility of status changes and log output of jobs and workflows
- Multi-client capability, role based access management
High Availability
- Redundancy and Resilience based on asynchronous design and autonomous Agents
- Clustering for all JS7 products, automatic fail-over and manual switch-over
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DxEnterprise
DxEnterprise Smart High Availability is an infrastructure-agnostic software solution that simplifies management and network security for mission-critical SQL Server workloads across modern hybrid and multi-cloud environments. It frees organizations from vendor lock-in and gives them the power to create SQL Server Availability Group clusters containing any mix of OSes, containers, virtual machines, bare-metal, and cloud servers. Organizations unlock:
- Granular database-level monitoring with intelligent automated failover
- Nearest-to-zero SQL Server downtime for Windows, Linux, and containers
- Easy stretch clusters across sites and clouds for robust disaster recovery
Built-in Zero Trust Network Access tunneling allows users to securely deploy HA clusters that span from anywhere, to anywhere, without VPNs or direct links.
DxEnterprise also comes standard with DxOperator by DH2i, Microsoft’s preferred Operator for Kubernetes (K8s) SQL Server deployments.
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Pricing
Free Trial:
Free Trial available.
Integrations
Company Information
Microsoft
Founded: 1975
United States
learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/failover-clustering/failover-clustering-overview
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