Dear Microsoft Employees,

could you please answer the following question:

A customer of me plans to deploy a new File Server Cluster. The plan is to deploy 2 physical boxes and 2 virtual Servers as a 4-node Cluster.

My question: is it officially supported, to use the Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Standard for the physical Servers and Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard for the virtual Servers? The customer is fully licensed with Server 2012 R2 for the virtual Servers and has appropriate CALs already purchased. The Background of the question is to save money when purchasing the physical servers (approx. 800 fr Server Standard vs. approx. 400 for Storage Server Std.).

Thank you!

Kidn regards, David

• Edited by David_SE Friday, September 11, 2015 11:52 AM misspelling

"is it officially supported, to use the Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Standard for the physical Servers and Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard for the virtual Servers?"

No.  Versions of the operating system in a cluster must match.  I don't think it would even pass the validation test.

 

Dear Microsoft Employees,

could you please answer the following question:

A customer of me plans to deploy a new File Server Cluster. The plan is to deploy 2 physical boxes and 2 virtual Servers as a 4-node Cluster.

My question: is it officially supported, to use the Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 Standard for the physical Servers and Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard for the virtual Servers? The customer is fully licensed with Server 2012 R2 for the virtual Servers and has appropriate CALs already purchased. The Background of the question is to save money when purchasing the physical servers (approx. 800 fr Server Standard vs. approx. 400 for Storage Server Std.).

Thank you!

Kidn regards, David

This is exactly the reason it's not going to work :) Storage server is stripped down version of Windows Server built to serve limited set of scenarios: STORAGE.