In a clustered ONTAP environment, what is quorum?

• A. A type of snapshot
• B. A majority of cluster components required to form a healthy cluster
• C. A RAID level
• D. A data deduplication metric

Answer: (C)

Quorum means having the majority of voting members needed for the cluster to operate safely. In a clustered ONTAP setup, the voting members are the cluster nodes (and any configured quorum device). This majority ensures that, if the cluster becomes partitioned, only the side with the majority votes stays active, preventing split-brain and potential data inconsistency. If a majority can’t be reached, the cluster may enter a degraded state or halt operations to protect data integrity. Quorum is not a snapshot, not a RAID level, and not a deduplication metric.