I know that when you are trying to setup Always on you need to do a few things:
1) You need to setup windows failover cluster; give a name to the cluster, give an ip to the cluster you just named and add the machines.
2) you need to check the box for always on in configuration manager on all the nodes
3) you need to create a shared folder on node1 where you create backups of the databases you want in the group
4) you run the wizard and you add the replica for the failover
5) you create a listener with a name and static IP.
*from the tutorials that I've seen, this is pretty much what you need to do in a nutshell
Here are my questions:
From number 3, why do we need a shared folder? Is it just for accessing the backups from the initial setup, or is it something where node2 creates the mdf and log files it needs, like a central repository in a SAN for 2008 clustering?
From number 5, why do we need to create a listener with a static ip, isn't that why we created the windows clustering with a name and ip to redirect us to the primary/secondary server?