Microsoft will support eight-node failover clusters in Windows .NET Enterprise Server. The decision came months after the Beta 3 release of the Windows .NET Server family editions back in November, when Microsoft announced that only four-node clusters would be supported in Windows .NET Enterprise Server, while eight-node failover clusters would be reserved for Windows .NET Datacenter Server customers. A Microsoft spokesman told ENT that customer demand led to the change. "Making eight-node clustering exclusive to Datacenter Server does not fit within our focus of scalability and reliability [for Datacenter Server]," the spokesman said.

"Customers see a value in clustering and would like to more completely exploit that capability on smaller [four-processor] servers, which do not qualify for the Datacenter Server [which can only be purchased on eight-processor capable machines]," the spokesman said. Market demand for greater than two-node clusters has been slow to develop. All demand for Microsoft failover clustering has pretty much been satisfied by two-node clustering up until now.

Thanks to Stefan Demetz for the heads up on this one.