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Figure 2-27:
Configuring cluster quorum settings 
4.
The Configure Cluster Quorum Wizard opens. On the Select Quorum Configuration Option page, 
click Select The Quorum Witness, as depicted in Figure 2-3 
Figure 2-28: 
Selecting the quorum type 
5.
On the Select Quorum Witness page, click Configure A Cloud Witness, as illustrated in 
Figure 2-29. 
Figure 2-29:
Configuring a cloud witness 
6.
On the Configure Cloud Witness page, type the storage account name you created in the 
management portal, your Azure primary storage account key, and the Azure service endpoint, 
as shown in Figure 2-30. 

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33 
CHAPTER 2 | Software-defined datacenter 
Figure 2-30:
Entering storage account information 
Note You can do the same in Windows PowerShell by using the following command: 
Set-ClusterQuorum -CloudWitness -AccountName MyWitness -AccessKey 
-Endpoint core.windows.net 
There are two key prerequisites for using the cloud witness: 

You must have a valid Azure subscription. 

All nodes must have Internet access and be able to access Azure. 
Additionally, as with a file-share witness, you can use the same Azure account or container for 
multiple clusters. 
Shared VHDX improvements 
Since Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, you have had the ability to create guest clusters as VMs. 
However, to have any sort of shared storage, you were required to use iSCSI. Windows Server 2012 
introduced virtual Fibre Channel support for VMs as a second option for shared storage. 
However, from a service provider perspective, virtual Fibre Channel is not always a viable option. 
Virtual Fibre Channel opens and allows customer access to the physical storage infrastructure as does 
physical iSCSI. However, if a service provider set up a VM and added iSCSI support for the customer-
shared drives, the customers might be unhappy because they would be charged for an additional VM. 
Because of these concerns, Microsoft introduced Shared VHDX in Windows Server 2012 R2 as an 
additional option. Shared VHDX gives guest clusters the shared storage they needed without access 
to storage infrastructures. This did add another option from a shared-disk perspective; however, it was 
not without limitations. In the latest Windows Server 2016, improvements have been made to address 
some of these limitations. 
Suppose that you have a Shared VHDX drive that is filling up, and you need to increase the size. In 
Windows Server 2012 R2, downtime was unavoidable because to increase the size the VMs would 
need to be powered off. That is not an ideal solution for a 24/7 business. In Windows Server 2016, you 
can now expand the drive while it is online. (Note that you can only expand a Shared VHDX drive, you 
cannot shrink one.) 
To expand the drive, perform the following steps: