Exchange 2013 DAG Cluster Network Object

There has been some confusion about the CNO object creation with Exchange 2013 DAGs that I want to clear up. The documentation was a little unclear with the following statement: "When creating a DAG with Mailbox servers running Windows Server 2012 in an Active Directory environment with Windows Server 2008 R2 directory servers, you must pre-stage the cluster network object before adding members to the DAG". The incorrect part of that statement is regarding the Active Directory environment. In actuality you MUST pre-stage the CNO object when running Exchange 2013 DAGs on Windows Server 2012 regardless of the Directory Server versions. The documentation is in the process of being updated.

So what if I forget to pre-stage the CNO object? You will get the error message below when you try to add servers to the DAG.

A server-side database availability group administrative operation failed. Error The operation failed. CreateCluster errors may result from incorrectly configured static addresses. Error: An error occurred while attempting a cluster operation. Error: Cluster API ‘”CreateCluster() failed with 0×5. Error: Access is denied”‘ failed.

Pre-Stage CNO Object - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff367878.aspx

Create Exchange 2013 DAG - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351172.aspx