SQL Failover Cluster w/o Domain

[Blunted One]

I am setting up a failover cluster for SQL (Principal, Mirror, Witness). Everything seemed to be in order, until I began working on the servers they gave me and noticed that I am not joined to the companies domain. As anyone with MS SQL experiance knows that SQL doesn't like to play nice with other computers that are not on a domain and there in lies my problem.

I am unable for the life of me to get the 3 machines to talk to each other (by which I mean syncronize). All settings are correct, everything that might block communication is turned off. But alas I still get the same errors every time complaining that it cannot find/connect to the other servers (which is BS and I know the error msgs in SQL are usually misleading).

The only way I have found so far to accomplish this task (since they won't let me join the computers to their domain) is to create certificates.

Is this really the only way? Is there any way around this or perhaps someone has some reading material for me to look at?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

More INFO:

I even created a dns suffix (test.com) so that perhaps I could scoot around this non-domain issue, but alas no. I was also told not to make any of the servers into domain controllers, because of possible unforseen issues on their network (I am on a vlan). What can I do to get this up and running? I hate making certificates (I am also inexperianced in creating them) so I am asking for your insight on either how to do this quickly or perhaps a way around it.

I have two Win2K3 SP2 standard application servers (principal and mirror) and one XP SP2 (witness)

If I missed anything just tell/ask me and I'll provide it ASAP.

[Blunted One]

So yesterday I taught myself how to write up certificates for SQL and after a while I was able to get everything working.

Time and patience can be keys when working with SQL and its command sequences for creating certs.

I was wondering if it is at all possible to modify certs after they are created? What I am specifically asking about is can certs be modified to entend out their exp. date? Or do I have to start all over again?

[phishphreek]

So yesterday I taught myself how to write up certificates for SQL and after a while I was able to get everything working.

Time and patience can be keys when working with SQL and its command sequences for creating certs.

I was wondering if it is at all possible to modify certs after they are created? What I am specifically asking about is can certs be modified to entend out their exp. date? Or do I have to start all over again?

As far as I know, you'll have to recreate the cert. Once it has been issued, you can use it, revoke it or wait till it expires. It's not something that can be changed. That is by design.