Fixing a cluster that is offline
What do you do when you have a cluster that is completely offline? Have you ever encountered this problem? If so, you will know that you cannot manage your cluster using Cluster Administrator. In order to do so, Cluster Administrator must make a connection to the cluster - kind of hard if it's offline :-)

So, what to do? Well, you pull out your trusty cluster.exe command-line tool. Using cluster.exe, you can query for the status of the resources in your cluster by simply typing the command:

cluster.exe res

This will enumerate and list all resources as well as their status. From here you can bring an individual resource online (or fail it). For example, if your Cluster Network Name is offline, you can type

cluster.exe res "Cluster Network Name" /online

or

cluster.exe res "Cluster Network Name" /fail

Once the Network Name and IP address resources are online, you can continue by using the Cluster Administrator tool.
- posted by Ben Winzenz @ 8:01 PM