Is it possible to do an in-place upgrade of Windows Server 2008 SP2 Failover Cluster to Windows Server 2008 R2?

Question

I have not been able to find any definitive documentation on this. If yes, is there a TechNet article or similar about it? If not, what's the option? Any help is appreciated. The failover cluster is running SQL Server 2008 R2 and it has 2 nodes.

Thread source link: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/3ea150b3-982a-4635-b9ee-bdc9ca2a4546/is-it-possible-to-do-an-inplace-upgrade-of-windows-server-2008-sp2-failover-cluster-to-windows?forum=winserverClustering

Answer 1

Hi Brouno,

Based on my understanding, you want to upgrade 2008 SQL cluster to 2008R2 SQL cluster. Feel free to correct me if I misunderstood.

1. As far as I know, we couldn't do an "in-place upgrade", to upgrade the cluster, we need to evict one node and drain roles, then upgrade the node to Server 2008R2. Now, the old cluster has one node left(node2). After upgrading Node1 to Server 2008R2, install Cluster on node1, then we have two clusters each has one node, then migrate the old cluster to the new cluster. After migration, destroy the old cluster and upgrade Node2 to Server 2008R2, after then, join the node to the new cluster.
2. As for SQL cluster, it might has its own process for migration, it's better to consult engineers in SQL forum about how to migration SQL cluster:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-us/home?forum=sqldisasterrecovery

Best Regards,

Anne