We did something similar about a year ago.  One of our main objectives was to minimise downtime. 

The main potential period of downtime is where we migrate databases from...

I could moan about the addiction Windows has for reboots and remember the many months of uptime commonly seen on MVS/370 where a patch seldom required an outage.  (I think...

It won't help your current problem, but you need to get your company rules changed for system drive size.  60GB for Windows and SQL server over a lifetime of 5...

You need to be aware there are two separate Reporting Services products available for SQL 2017:
* SQL Server Reporting Services
* PowerBI Reporting Services

SQL Server Reporting Services...

There are two aspects of the OP: 1) Pro and Con of using SPs; 2) Cost of conversion

For me the main advantage of SPs over code embedded in...

Somehow I didn't get Perry's responses until after I made my last post.  Perry has answered it all I think.

So you have WSFC which provides clustering at the Windows level, and SQL FCI the provides clustering at the SQL Server level.  FCI sits on top of WSFC.

For...

When you install SQL Serve rit has to either be installed as a SQL Cluster or as a stand-alone instance.  You cannot change a non-clustered SQL install to a clustered...

I think your consultant is giving you a gold-plated solution.  It undoubtedly has the capability to work but will cost a lot to implement.  

If you are not...

If you are going for what is called 'Out of Region' second node with SQL Clustering then you will need a mechanism to keep both data stores synchronised.  Windows 2016...

Personally I would look at using Availability Groups instead of clustering SQL Server.  AGs will meet your availability and resilience targets and are a far more strategic direction for SQL...

You are doing the standard techie thing of talking about technical solutions without outlining the business problem.
Even if your managers have said they want a cluster (especially if it...

Windows 2012, Windows 2012R2 and Windows 2016 each have version-specific install media for .Net 3.5.  If you install x86 version of Win8, Win8.1 or Win10 there is also separate media...

In my old job over time we upgraded from SQL2005 to SQL2008 to SQL2008R2 to SQL2012 and were going live with SQL2014 when I retired at the end of 2014.

The credentials used for validation must be capable of being replaced in their entirety when they get compromised.
The security guys are selling the concept of improved or foolproof security...