Remove a Node from a Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V Cluster and Destroy a Cluster Procedure

Failover clustering supports up to 64 nodes and 8000 virtual machines per cluster with 1024 virtual machines per node. In production environment you need to Add a Node to an Active cluster and sometimes remove a Node from the cluster. Even some scenario you need to destroy a cluster as well. Normally, when a node is damaged or no longer needed in the cluster, you evict node from a cluster, which removes the node from the cluster configuration. You should evict a node under the following scenarios:

• Operating system problem
• Hardware replacement
• Permanently removing a node from a cluster
• Renaming a node of a cluster
• Test environment

In this article you can remove a node from a Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V cluster and destroy a cluster.

Remove a Node from Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V Cluster:

In Failover Cluster Manager, expand KTMHVCluster.msserverpro.com, click Nodes. In the Node pane, right-click the Nodes that you want to remove a Node from the cluster, KTM-HOST1, select More Actions, and then click Stop Cluster Service. The status of that node will change to Draining to Down. You might need to click Refresh in the Actions pane to see this.

In the Node panes, right-click KTM-HOST1, select More Actions, and then click Evict.

In the Evict node KTM-HOST1 window, click Yes.

Verify that KTM-HOST1 is no longer present in the Nodes pane and make sure all the virtual machines are in second Node, KTM-HOST2. Here, you have stop all highly available virtual machines.

As you have already stop all highly available virutal machines, now its ready to remove a last Node from the cluster. In the Nodes pane, right-click KTM-HOST2, select More Actions, and then click Stop Cluster Service.

Destroy a Cluster:

In Failover Cluster Manager, right-click KTMHVCluster.msserverpro.com, select More Actions, and then click Destroy Cluster…

In the Error window,  “You cannot destroy a cluster that contains clustered roles. First delete all clustered roles from this cluster, and then try this action again” click OK.

Delete all Clustered Roles from Cluster:

In Failover Cluster Manager, click Roles. In the Roles pane, right-click a single highly available virtual machine or select all highly available virtual machines and click Remove.

In Remove Virtual Machine windows, click Yes to removing highly available virtual machines from cluster.

After removing all these virtual machines from cluster,now its ready to Destroy Cluster…. In the Failover Cluster Manager, Expand KTMHVCluster.msserverpro.com, select More Actions, and then click Destroy Cluster…

In the Destroy Cluster windows, click Yes to permanently destroy cluster… KTMHVCluster.

Verify that Destroy Cluster… KTMHVCluster… and no longer present KTMHVCluster.

Lastly, remove cluster computer name from Active Directory User and Computers.

 

 

 

Summary:

I hope this article, “Remove a Node from a Hyper-V 2016 Cluster and Destroy a Cluster Procedure” helps in modifying a Failover Cluster such as remove a Node from the cluster and Destroy a Cluster in Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.