I have 4 nodes cluster on Windows Core with SQL Server 2016 installed on them (4 instances, 1 instance on each node).
I would like to remove 2 nodes from the cluster (2 instances aren't needed).
I can't run the SQL Server SETUP.exe utility in order to Choose "Remove node from a SQL Server failover cluster".
I can open Failover Cluster Manager on another server remove it from there, OR use WAC (Windows Admin Center) to perform the action.
However, most of the links I read about evicting SQL Cluster nodes are using that GUI utility (Setup.exe)
Will evicting via the WAC/Failover Cluster manager without the 'Setup.exe' step will hurt the cluster's validity ?
What is the correct way to perform it ?
Many thanks,
Roni.
Best Answer
Use the command-line parameters for setup.exe on Windows Core. The details can be found at Microsoft Docs. Using the command-line parameters allows use of the setup.exe without requiring the GUI pieces, which are problematic on Windows Core.
From that page:
A simple example, taken from the page linked, is: