How to create a microsoft 2012 Failover cluster for msSQL2014 AlwaysON?

Briefly:

A complete windows failover cluster installation and configuration is not needed for msSQL2014 AlwaysON feature. Rather winows failover cluster service configure with 2 or more nodes added in cluster is sufficient.

Quick node:

• Join 2 or more nodes into a domain.
• Install Failover cluster service.
• Configure a cluster using failover cluster manager

In detail:

1. Join nodes into a domain and login as domain administrator into each server and install failover cluster service.

2. Add the nodes and finish the wizard.

Points to note:

A quorum share for cluster is for node voting. Cluster voting is a way for the cluster joined node to identify who is primary. However for msSQL2014 AlwaysON this is not needed as AlwaysON and windows cluster are two different technology.

• windows cluster is node level availability which uses a quorom disk/share to vote and decide who is primary and runs services on the primary node.
• msSQL2014 AlwaysON uses windows failover cluster feature  to identify node status for automatic sqlserver failover and manage sync commits.
• use of windows cluster and msSQL AlwaysON together is redundant. If you want high availability on SQLserver along with node then first you need a windows cluster configured with quorum, and virtual disks then install msSQL2014 Failover cluster. unlike in AlwaysON you just need to install msSQL2014 in standalone mode.