Question:During a Windows 2019 Failover Cluster deployment, an administrator is unable to deploy a Nutanix...

Thewitness sharein a Windows Failover Cluster environment (for cluster quorum) requires a highly available and consistent SMB share.

In the NUSA course, it’s highlighted thatDistributed File System (DFS)is not compatible with witness share deployments because:

“When DFS is enabled on a Nutanix Files share, it redirects and abstracts file paths across multiple servers for redundancy and load balancing. However, Windows Failover Clustering requires direct access to a highly available SMB share without DFS interference to maintain strict cluster quorum consistency.”

Therefore, to deploy awitness share:

DFS must be disabled on the shareused for the cluster witness.

Enabling DFS causes redirection and breaks direct share connections that Failover Clustering needs.

WORM and share type are irrelevant here—DFS is the critical factor.

NFS is not suitable because Windows Failover Clustering requires SMB for witness shares.

Thus, to resolve the deployment issue, the administrator shoulddisable DFS on the shareintended for the witness role.