Table of Contents

Clustering with Hyper-V

See also more Hyper-V pages

:!: When you are running Hyper-V in a failover cluster, you should always create the VMs in Failover Cluster Manager. If you create the VMs with Hyper-V Manager, you need to specify the location of the VMs configuration and virtual hard disk so they are located on a clustered shared volume.

Hyper-V Server 2012, Powershell and SMB: http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2012/12/12/step-by-step-building-a-free-hyper-v-server-2012-cluster-part-1-of-2.aspx

Step by Step, 2012 R2: http://blog.augustoalvarez.com.ar/2014/03/27/step-by-step-creating-a-windows-server-2012-r2-failover-cluster-using-starwind-iscsi-san-v8/

http://kristiannese.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-make-your-existing-vms-highly.html

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831579

http://v-enfra.blogspot.com/2012/09/failover-cluster-feature-in-microsoft.html

http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2008/07/16/failover-clustering-for-hyper-v-with-file-server-storage.aspx

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/networking/deploy-and-manage-hyper-v-host-clusters-with-system-center-2012-vmm/5466

2008 R2: http://www.virtualizationadmin.com/articles-tutorials/general-virtualization-articles/setting-up-failover-clustering-hyper-v-part1.html

Network Traffic Types

Network Recommendations, Windows Server 2012: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn550728.aspx

Management Provides connectivity between the server that is running Hyper-V and basic infrastructure functionality - Used to manage the Hyper-V management operating system and virtual machines
Cluster Used for inter-node cluster communication such as the cluster heartbeat and Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) redirection
Live Migration Used for virtual machine live migration
Storage Used for SMB traffic or for iSCSI traffic
Replica Traffic Used for virtual machine replication through the Hyper-V Replica feature
Virtual Machine Access Used for virtual machine connectivity - Typically requires external network connectivity to service client requests

Default Hyper-V Storage Locations

Once your cluster is up and running and you have a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV), you must store your VMs in the CSV to make them highly available.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro/archive/2012/09/11/default-file-locations-in-hyper-v.aspx

Live Migration

http://blogs.technet.com/b/iftekhar/archive/2010/01/18/microsoft-virtualization-hyper-v-live-migration-network-configuration.aspx

Configuration Guide: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff428137%28v=WS.10%29.aspx

It's recommended to use Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) for Live Migration storage for these reasons:

  1. All cluster nodes have concurrent access to shared storage
  2. Multiple VHDs can be stored on a single shared volume
  3. No drive letter problems
  4. Faster failovers

:!: Live migration will only use one TCP stream between any pair of hosts. For faster live migration, use 10GbE NICs or migrate to multiple destinations over multiple 1GbE NICs.

Basics

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-groups/dtcmedia/m/mediagallery/19861461/download.aspx

The Hyper-V Failover Cluster should be created in the following order:

  1. Configure physical NICs on both Hyper-V servers
  2. Configure storage resources on both Hyper-V servers
  3. Install Hyper-V role on each server
  4. Install Failover Cluster feature on each server
  5. Create the virtual networks used for the Virtual Machines
  6. Validate the cluster configuration
  7. Create the cluster

Step-by-step guide on Hyper-V Failover Clustering: http://technet.Microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732181.aspx.

:!: Redundancy for iSCSI connections is typically done with MPIO, not with bonding/teaming.

:!: Physical NICs should be configured prior to creating the Hyper-V virtual network interfaces. The Virtual Networks can later be added using the Hyper-V Virtual Network Manager.

Hyper-V Server 2012

:!: You can configure and manage failover clustering and live migration by using Server Manager on a Windows Server 2012 computer. 

get-windowsfeature | findstr /i cluster 

dism /online /get-features | more                                   #to list FeatureName

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:[FeatureName]

Example: 

Install-WindowsFeature -Name Failover-Clustering

Or you can install from remote using below command: 

Install-WindowsFeature -Name Failover-Clustering –ComputerName [YourServerName]

After your installation, you can verify the feature installation using the Get-WindowsFeature command: 

get-windowsfeature | findstr /i cluster

SMB

http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2012/03/06/windows-server-quot-8-quot-beta-test-cases-for-hyper-v-over-smb.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831399.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831795.aspx

Cluster in a Box (CiB)

http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/3U/6036/SYS-6036ST-6LR.cfm

http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2013/05/08/oem-appliance-oobe-update-set-up-a-4-node-cluster-in-30-minutes.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2012/08/06/customizing-the-oem-appliance-oobe-in-windows-server-2012.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj643306.aspx

Reference Host

Install Windows Server 2012.

Install the OOBE feature: 

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:OEM-Appliance-OOBE

Install the Hyper-V role and the Failover Clustering feature: