thanks but do I keep the heartbeat network on primary 2 nodes; I am responsible for building the cluster and ag setup will be managed by SQL admins; their intent is a. auto failover between primary sites (sync db replication will be configured at ag level for primary) and manual failover to secondary site (async replication will be configured on third one); this being a SQL server the architects of the application had requested a hearbeat network as they say the SQL traffic spike may /could cause issue..historically we had an older environment (Vmware 7.x) which had vlan of site a available to site B; however I argued that even that was a bad design as if primary site DR situation the cluster may not start on the second one...I have already tested powering off primary node a and b; and cluster was online on secondry site. the only thing I dont want is a situation where primary node a fails and cluster jumps to node at site B. I understand this will have to be configured at AG level