How to Upgrade Failover Cluster Functional Level

When you add new nodes with a higher operating system to your Windows Failover cluster environment, you will receive warnings about "Functional Level" mismatch in your failover cluster logs.

The main reason for these warnings is that the operating systems and functional levels of the clusters connected to the nodes in your environment are different from each other.

You can follow the steps below to change the functional level compatibility;

  • To view the Failover Cluster Functional Level version
    Get-Cluster | select ClusterFunctionalLevel
  • To upgrade the Failover Cluster Functional Level version
    Update-ClusterFunctionalLevel
  • To view the upgrade process of the Failover Cluster Functional Level version
    Get-Cluster | select ClusterFunctionalLevel
  • In Windows Server 2019 the Clustering team introduced a new PowerShell cmdlet to check how many nodes of the cluster are running on which level
    "Get-ClusterNodeSupportedVersion" helps you to identify the Cluster Functional Level and the Cluster Upgrade Version.

The table below shows the values and each corresponding functional level:

 

For more detailed information;

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How to Fix Failed While Applying Switch Port Settings ‘Ethernet Switch Port VLAN Settings’

If you get the following error when you want to make a VLAN change on your virtual server that you use on Hyperv;

"Error applying Network Adapter changes"
"The operation failed. Failed while applying switch port settings 'Ethernet Switch Port VLAN Settings' on switch 'Vs': One or more arguments are invalid (0x80070057)."

The root cause of this problem is the network mode you use on your virtual server, for example F5 virtual server appliance.
Let’s continue with the example there are more than one ethernet card over the F5 virtual server appliance, some of which are trunk and some are access mode.

You will get an error when you make the VLAN change on the Trunk mode card from the Hyper V Failover Cluster gui.

To fix this problem, you can follow the steps below;

  • First of all, we view the cards and their modes on the virtual server.
    Get-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -VMName servername
  • The tag is removed the network card with trunk mode.
    Set-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -VMName servername -VMNetworkAdapterName NIC3 -untagged
  • We define access mode and VLAN ID.
    Set-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -VMName servername -VMNetworkAdapterName NIC3 -Access -VlanId 715
  • To view the change made.
    Get-VMNetworkAdapterVlan -VMName servername

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March 2023 Exchange Server Security Updates

Microsoft Exchange Servers security updates have been released for March 2023.

These updates are available for the following specific versions of Exchange Server:

Exchange Server 2013 CU23 SU21 (Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 will reach its end of support on April 11, 2023)
Exchange Server 2016 CU23 SU7
Exchange Server 2019 CU11 SU11 & CU12 SU7

The recommendation is to install these updates immediately to protect your environment.
In the scenario where you do a Cumulative Update(CU), you need to make security updates. Otherwise, remember that you have to do the Cumulative Update(CU) first and then the Security Update(SU).

Inventory your Exchange Servers to determine which updates –> “Exchange Server Health Checker
Choose your current CU and your target CU to get directions –>  “Exchange Update Wizard
If you encounter errors during or after installation of Exchange Server –> “Exchange Setup Assist

Note: Don't double-click the 'MSP file' to run it. Run Command Prompt (not Powershell) as an Administrator.

Issues resolved with this update:

  • EWS web application pool stops after the February 2023 Security Update is installed .
    ⇒If you have applied a workaround for this issue, you should roll it back after the March security update.
  • Exchange Server 2016 or 2019 who have non-default applications installed through ECP add-ins, the ECP add-ins page might be broken after the February 2023 Security Update is installed
    ⇒The issue is expected to be resolved with the March security update.
  • The Get-App and GetAppManifests applications fail and return an exception, “MSExchangeServicesAppPool” application pool to repeat in the same order after the February 2023 Security Update is installed .
    ⇒The issue has been resolved with the March security update.
  • Exchange Toolbox and Queue Viewer fails after Certificate Signing of PowerShell Serialization Payload is enabled after the Janurary 2023 or the February 2023 Security Update is installed.
    ⇒The issue has been resolved with the March security update for servers running the Mailbox Role, but this issue persists on other servers with management console installed.

Have a nice day!