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DAGs: When Installing Them Becomes A Chore

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I had a lab and I was running into a problem building a Database Availability Group (DAG). I had installed Exchange 2013 Mailbox Role on 3 Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard machines. I was receiving the following error:

A database availability group administrative operation failed. Error: Failed to add or remove the Failover-Clustering feature. Error: ArgumentNotValid: invalid role, role service or feature: ‘Failover-Clustering;. The name was not found.

Well, as it turns out, you cannot install clustering on a Standard Server, it must be Enterprise or Datacenter. Luckily enough, a tool - Deployment Imaging Service Management (DSIM) Utiltiy - can come to our rescue. We can use elevated command prompts to convert our server versions to the desired/needed version and continue installing our DAG members. It's important to note two things: 1.) The keys for conversion come from Key Management Services (KMS). 2.) You will still need a product key for activation, after the conversion.

To convert from Standard to Enterprise edition:

DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerEnterprise /ProductKey:489J6-VHDMP-X63PK-3K798-CPX3Y

To convert from the Standard to Datacenter edition:

DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter /ProductKey:74YFP-3QFB3-KQT8W-PMXWJ-7M648

Now, you can install your DAG members and enjoy High Availability.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2017
    Legend! Exactly what I needed.