A cluster of WSFC virtual machines on a single host (also known as a cluster in a box or CIB) consists of clustered virtual machines on the same ESXi host. The virtual machines are connected to the same storage, either local or remote. This configuration protects against failures at the operating system and application level, but it does not protect against hardware failures.
Note: Do not host virtual nodes of a WSFC on the same ESXi host for a production deployment.
Note: Windows Server 2012 and above releases support up to five nodes (virtual machines).
The following figure shows a cluster in a box setup.
- Two virtual machines on the same ESXi host run WSFC.
- The virtual machines share a private network connection for the private heartbeat and a public network connection.
- Each virtual machine is connected to shared storage, which can be local or on a SAN.
- Each shared disk should be attached to SCSI controller with bus sharing mode set to Virtual.
