Many of you know that used to do a lot of VMware training… primarily for a company called VMTraining. So I was thrilled when they reached out to me recently and asked if I was willing to do a webinar on Hyper-V for their customers… and for anyone else who was interested. While it is not in response to it, the webinar does follow a similar one done recently by one of their senior instructors that put forth that vSphere is the best hypervisor. I have said many times over the past year that Hyper-V can go head to head with any competitive product, and I am happy to step up to that challenge.
Join me this afternoon at 1:00pm CST (2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific) for a one hour session on why Microsoft’s Hyper-V is truly the best hypervisor on the market today! Register here and listen in… if you weren’t sure before then you will be after the hour!
Hey folks! I know it is Friday afternoon, it is mid-May, and most of the country is hip-deep in the NHL playoffs, so I figure I will give you a lighter post… something that will stick in your mind, but with no ‘gotta test it, action items attacked’ sort of thing.
Hyper-V has come a long way since its introduction. They have gotten to a position of parity with vSphere (its major competition), with a few unique features and a couple of missing features… but for the first time the Microsoft team is confident that their product is on a par.
As someone who has been around Hyper-V since the beginning, I always enjoy when I notice something that has been introduced quietly; not the big ones, like Storage Live Migration and Dynamic Memory that get all of the fanfare, but smaller things. Such as:
Hot-changing of many of the Virtual Machine settings, such as Name, Integration Services, and Automatic Start Actions; these are all things that can be changed on running virtual machines.
Hot-changing Memory & CPU Resources: With Dynamic Memory the Minimum RAM can be lowered and the Maximum RAM can be raised; the Memory Buffer and Memory Weight can both be changed on the fly as well.
Virtual Hard Drives can be added to an existing SCSI Controller – this is great for demonstrating Storage Spaces!
Virtual Switches (previously Virtual Networks) can be modified on the fly, and virtual machines can be connected or disconnected on the fly; in fact the only change that cannot be made to Virtual Switches is with SR-IOV, which can only be configured for a virtual switch when that switch is created.
Snapshots can be taken of virtual machines at any point, and those snapshots can be reverted or deleted at any time. One huge improvement to this is that VHDs and AVHD files will merge on the fly, instead of having to wait until the virtual machine is shut down.
These are just some of the minor improvements that I have found in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 (although it applies equally to Hyper-V Server 2012 and Hyper-V in Windows 8). There are more of course, but in a nutshell we see real advantages here over previous versions.
No, we do not have hot-add memory and CPUs… I hope the team is working on that; but by enabling the adjustment (up and down) of Dynamic Memory we have made real strides, and adding to that the other improvements, it is worth downloading and installing right now! You can deploy this in you lab and take advantage of the flexibility this technology can provide. Try it for yourself by downloading Windows Server 2012!
Someone just forwarded this to me. It is a commercial for Windows Azure’s Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) offering, and it is absolutely hilarious! Thanks for following guys… Let me end the week with one funny post!
I love promoting IT Pros and Microsoft, but when one of the champions is a Canadian it is even better for me. Mitch Tulloch is an IT Pro author from Winnipeg, and is one of the guys I really look up to. I have a bunch of his books, and every time a new one comes out I try to add it to my collection. Here are two more that are right in my wheelhouse – Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012. Pick them up and you will not regret it! –MDG
Microsoft Press is releasing two new titles for IT pros who work with the Hyper-V virtualization platform:
The author team includes Mitch Tulloch, series editor, and over a dozen individuals at Microsoft including Support Escalation Engineers, Premier Field Engineers, Program Managers, Data Center Specialists, and experts from Microsoft Consulting Services. These short titles will be available in June in both ebook and print format and while their primary focus is on the Windows Server 2012 version of Hyper-V, much of what they cover can also be applied to previous versions of Hyper-V. Note that these titles are not intended as systematic guides and instead cover various scenarios on how to optimize Hyper-V environments and how to troubleshoot different kinds of issues involving networking and storage for Hyper-V hosts and virtual machines.
Everyone runs Windows… okay, that is not entirely true, but by 2012 it is the rare datacentre that does not have any Windows running. I have been crisscrossing the country and indeed traversing the globe telling people how wonderful Hyper-V and Microsoft’s virtualization story is as good as or better than it’s competition, whether that be VMware or KVM or whoever else. That often brings up the question from my audiences: ‘Okay, so Hyper-V and System Center are great for managing the Microsoft environment, but what about the mixed-mode environment for DCs that run some Windows, some Linux, and some Oracle? What tools should we be using in conjunction with System Center, and should I consider for this environment implementing a permanent heterogeneous virtualization environment with Hyper-V running my Windows machines, and either VMware or KVM for my non-Windows systems?’
The truth is that Microsoft wants your business. I will not deny that, Microsoft feels that if your virtualization hosts are running Hyper-V and you are managing it using System Center 2012, then it should be as easy a management experience as they can provide. They also understand that some of you are running other operating systems in some of your machines. Rather than making you use separate tools, they have made it easier for you to manage that heterogeneous mixed-mode environment using the same tools as you would use to manage your Microsoft environment – the ‘Single Pane of Glass’ that I have been speaking about for the past few years.
Last year I wrote an article about Linux Integration Services (LIS) 3.4 (http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro/archive/2012/09/11/linux-integration-services-for-hyper-v-3-4.aspx). Recently Gilson Banin, a PFE with Microsoft in Brazil, wrote a great step-by-step article on installing Oracle Linux with the LIS 3.4 under a Hyper-V environment. Of course Oracle Linux is not officially supported in Hyper-V (Oracle is very clear that the only virtualization environment they support is their own), but that does not mean that you cannot do it, and that it will not work. Try it out and let us know what you think!
Hello Virtualization Nation. Probably you are thinking, how an Premier Field Engineer that loves Windows Server may help a Linux Community? Well, before starting at Microsoft’s World I was a Linux enthusiast, I started my career managing SCO Unix, yes I was born in 1978 but leaving these years on the past, today I love to help customer to get better experience, it does not matter if virtual machines are Windows or Linux. Recently I had the opportunity to help a important customer here in Brazil to win this challenge. Frequently some Oracle DBA told me that Linux didn’t work very well on Hyper-V, they were working more than a month trying to install Linux and nothing, nothing, nothing. I love to hear these customers that are not satisfied with our product because I always have a chance to change the game and improve their satisfaction.
So I decided to do step by step all procedures to install Oracle Linux on Hyper-V, of course first step was to make a download of ISO of Oracle Linux from Oracle Web Site (www.oracle.com), I’ve used the version Release 6 Update 3 64 bits. I didn’t to try to use oldest versions but feel free to validate it.
The next step is to create a Virtual Machine without Network Interfaces (Yes! No NICs synthetic OR legacy). So create a VM into Hyper-V normally after remove Network Adapter, attach ISO and start it. Take a look VM settings below :
After that install the operating system using default values. During the installation you will observe that Network Settings will be not available to set IP address; don’t worry and continue and finish installation. Select “Install or upgrade an existing system”
Everybody knows that Oracle Linux is a copy of Red Hat Linux. In the past the companies had contractual agreements broken because all customers that decided to use Oracle on Linux, Red Hat always was recommended. Both companies won and had revenues.
Leaving disagree between these companies, let’s go back to this article, Configure Network button will not be available, don’t worry and go, click Next.
Wait for the process to complete, then log on as root and configure your password. If you use VI editor it is easier and simple. If you do not know how to do this visit http://www.linux.org/article/view/using-the-vi-editor
Edit /etc/grup.conf
# vi /etc/grub.conf set default = 1
# vi /etc/sysconfig/kernel,
(delete –uek from last of DEFUALT KERNEL..line)
Reboot (it is mandatory).
Insert ISO LIS 3.4 into virtual DVD.
login as root.
# mount /dev/cdrom /media
# cd /media/RHEL63
To Install Hyper-V Integration Services, execute ./install.sh
# ./install.sh
Shutdown virtual machine (#halt)
Add a Network Adapter (not legacy)
Start the VM. The Integration Services should be fine. Before editing configure network settings below:
# cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
# cp ifcfg-lo ifcfg-eth0
Edit ifcfg-eth0 and define your configurations (ip, mask, device name…)
#vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=YOUR IP
NETMASK=YOUR MASK
ONBOOT=yes
NAME=eth0
Now create or edit /etc/sysconfig/network and include below information, gateway is yours
# vi /etc/sysconfig/network (if it does not exist create it )
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=<your hostname>
GATEWAY= <your IP Gateway>
Edit /etc/resolv.conf and put at least one DNS IP server
# vi /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 8.8.8.8
(or use the system-config-network utility)
Select Device Configuration
Finally, execute # ifup eth0 to start network interface 0 and after # ifconfig, observe that network interface eth0 is now shown:
Linux Integration Services provides support for the modinfo command. To get module information for each installed kernel module, run the following command :
#/sbin/modinfo hv_vmbus
This command can be repeated for all kernel modules (hv_vmbus, hv_netvsc, hv_storvsc, hv_blkvsc, and hv_utils).
To verify that all subcomponents are running as the root user, issue the following command at a shell prompt :
Don’t forget that if your VM is highly available and you want to do Live Migration, MAC Address needs to be Static rather than Dynamic.
Change it on Advanced Features on Network Adapter Properties VM.
Well done! Welcome to Linux on Hyper-V!! Interoperability is here!
Even before joining Microsoft Canada’s DPE team as a Virtual Evangelist (the Virtual part means I am a contractor in case you were curious, but I also specialize in Virtualization so it works in my favour!) I have had the opportunity to crisscross our great nation talking to audiences of all sorts and sizes – communities and user groups, enterprise customers, internal and external audiences, and more. I have the greatest position I could imagine!
It continues today… I am heading to Calgary Alberta – a city that I have now visited a half dozen times in as many months, and one that I consider to be an important city for many reasons. In October I had the opportunity to host a Windows 8 Launch Party for Calgary at Bottlescrew Bill’s, and have been back since for Windows 8, Office 365, Windows Server 2012, System Center 2012, and of course Hyper-V. Every time I am there I am greeted by some of the greatest and most engaged and enthusiastic audiences. Ever since I first spoke to the Calgary IT Community (CIC) in January of 2007, I have always been glad to go back to them.
While the CIC is going strong even today, a number of other user groups have popped up in that time. The Calgary Systems Management User Group was founded in 2009 by Microsoft MVP Kevin Kaminski, and focuses on System Center, Desktop Deployment, and other topics of interest.
The latest group to come about in Calgary is the Calgary Virtualization User Group (CVUG). Founded by Marcos Noguiera, the group is one of the new breed of user groups that is technology agnostic and instead focuses on all topics related to virtualization. The CVUG held their first meeting in February of this year, and they are building and growing, and from what I can tell all in the right direction.
Tonight (Monday April 15th) I will be speaking at CVUG for the first time. For the first part of the meeting I will be comparing and contrasting VMware’s vSphere and Microsoft’s Virtualization & Private Cloud, and for the second part I will be discussing how to manage a heterogeneous virtualization environment using Microsoft’s System Center 2012. Needless to say it should be an interesting meeting, hopefully evoking a lot of great conversation and debate between the members.
The event is free for all; all you have to do is register on their website. I hope to see you there tonight and remember… make sure you say hi! –MDG
I have been saying for the past couple of years that Microsoft’s Hyper-V is much simpler than vSphere, but I never imagined that I would see this: Caleb, a 5th grader, shows us how to create a virtual machine, install an OS, and even create a virtual switch. Not only was I impressed with how well he does it, but his communication skills far exceed those of many adult IT Pros that I have met! (Not you of course… I mean the other guys…)
I have been getting a lot of questions recently about virtual machine CPU usage, especially around things like Symmetric Multi-Threading (SMT). Jeff Woosley, the Principal Product Manager (WSSC) at Microsoft, recently sent out this clarification which many of you will find enlightening. –MDG
—
Q: Should Symmetric Multi-Threading (SMT) be enabled or disabled?
A: Hyper-V works fine with Symmetric Multi-Threading and we recommend leaving it on. There’s really one corner case where you’d want to disable SMT:
>> if you’re running on a system that has more logical processor than is supported by Hyper-V <<
While this isn’t going to happen anytime soon with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, it can happen with earlier versions such as Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and previous. For example, if you’re running Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (which support a maximum of 64 logical processors) on a system that has a total of 80 logical processors (4 sockets, 10 cores per socket with SMT). Let’s discuss.
In this case, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V will use the first 64 logical processors and ignore the rest. This results in a bunch of idle cores in the system while SMT is used because of the way logical processors are enumerated during boot up. When the OS boots it starts with socket 1 and enumerates all logical processors:
on socket 1 it enumerates logical processors 1-20
on socket 2 it enumerates logical processors 21-40
on socket 3 it enumerates logical processors 41-60
and on socket 4 it would see 61-64
Notice that 65-80 are not enumerated and thus are ignored/not used by the system. This is because Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V only support up to 64 logical processors total. (Again, with Windows Server 2012/Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 it now supports up to 320 logical processors per server.) While SMT provides a good performance boost, a thread doesn’t equal a core, and you don’t want to leave any cores idle. Thus, in this case, we recommend disabling SMT so that Windows Server 2008 R2 uses all 40 cores. Let me again stress, this is a relative corner case.
The best solution is to use Windows Server 2012 and leave SMT enabled because it supports up to 320 logical processors and can take full advantage of the hardware resources.
Q: Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V supports up to 320 logical processors and virtual machines with up to 64 virtual processors per virtual machine. However, the industry isn’t standing still and will create larger servers were with more sockets and cores. How does Microsoft view scalability?
A: Scalability, like performance, is an ongoing engineering commitment. We are never “done” with improving scalability and performance. Just a few years ago 32 logical processors in a server seemed like a huge, scale up system. Now, that’s an industry standard 2 socket server. Today’s mainstream server is yesterday’s scale up system. That said, we pushed the envelope very far with Windows Server 2012 and lead the industry. We’re going to watch and listen closely to what’s most important for our customers.
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If you are interested in evaluating Windows Server or System Center 2012 you can can do so by clicking here:
Ask your customers to join this live online event designed for IT professionals that have questions about Microsoft virtualization and want to learn about Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V. Register here: http://aka.ms/MVAf-HyperV. If you cannot make the live event, sign up anyway so you can receive a notification when the recording is published on the Microsoft Virtual Academy.
Topics and demos may include:
· Introduction to Microsoft Virtualization
· Hyper-V Infrastructure
· Hyper-V Networking
· Hyper-V Storage
· Hyper-V Management
· Hyper-V High Availability and Live Migration
· Integration with System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager
· Integration with Other System Center 2012 Components
Microsoft has released a poster diagramming virtual networking in Hyper-V 2012. Much of it revolves around Virtual Machine Manager, and is actually branded System Center 2012 SP1. If you are building or managing datacenters – even smaller ones – you should download this document and review it. We all have something to learn from it!
The VMM networking poster is available for download here.
Now: If you are going to be at MMS, I am told that the Windows Server team will be giving out printed copies – I had one of the original Hyper-V environment and wore it out – it was my most referenced document for months!
If you are interested in evaluating Windows Server or System Center 2012 you can can do so by clicking here:
Many of the articles I write for both The World According to Mitch and the Canadian IT Pro Connection come directly from people I meet through my travels. They send me questions about technology by e-mail and rather than simply replying to them, if I feel the questions are relevant, I write them up as articles. So if you meet me at one of my sessions and you ask me a question, do not be surprised if I ask you to e-mail it to me… oftentimes I will need to research the answer, but sometimes it is because I think that it would make for an interesting write-up.
I have known Betty for as long as I have been going to her home town, and while she loves to give me grief I know that she is always attentive and learns from my presentations. She recently sent me an e-mail with two very good questions on Hyper-V following my IT Camp on Windows Server 2012.
QUESTION 1:
I have several virtual machines that were created on Server 2008R2, and I would like to convert them to VHDX to take advantage of all the new features on Windows 2012. Is this possible?
The process for exporting the virtual machine from Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2 and then importing it as a virtual machine onto a host running Windows Server 2012 is fairly simple: Export, then Import. However as I am sure you realize this does not convert the disk file format… ViVo in this case stands for VHD in, VHD out. However the Edit Disk Wizard in the new Hyper-V is your friend here.
Ensure that your virtual machine is powered down (or better yet disconnected).
From the Actions Pane of the Hyper-V Manager click Edit Disk…
On the Before You Begin page click Next.
On the Locate Virtual Hard Disk page navigate to the location of our VHD file (use Browse if you like!). Click Next.
On the Choose Action page select the radio marked Convert and click Next.
On the Convert Virtual Hard Disk page select the radio marked VHDX and click Next.
On the second Convert Virtual Hard Disk page select the disk format you prefer (Fixed or Dynamically Expanding) and click Next.
On the third Convert Virtual Hard Disk page enter the name and location of your new VHDX file and click Finish.
Depending on the size of your source disk it may take a few minutes to create the new file; for larger disks you might want to run the Edit Disk Wizard to compact it before proceeding. However once you are done you will have both the Source and the Destination disks, and all you have to do is edit the settings of your VM and attach the new drive, and you are ready to rock!
Notice that your new file is about 145 MB larger than the original. That is perfectly normal and nothing to be concerned about.
PowerShell: I’ve Got The Power!!Thanks to folks like Ed Wilson and our very own Sean Kearney it is once again cool to use the command line… or rather, the cmdlet. Nearly anything that you can do in the GUI can also be done in PowerShell, hence allowing us to create scripts to use at various clients or sites. If you want to convert your VHD to VHDX in PowerShell here’s how:
Again, it is important to remember that a) Your hard drive be off-line (or disconnected), and b) that once you have created the new VHDX file you must attach it to the VM before spinning it back up. As well you will notice the difference in file size. Nothing to be concerned by.
(This cmdlet can also be used to convert VHDX files back to VHD files)
QUESTION 2:
Do the virtual machines have to be Server 2012 for me to take advantage of the new features of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012, and especially the new .VHDX file format?
Of course not. Remember that the host and the guest have no real conception that the other is there; as long as you can install it on x86 hardware, you can install it in a Hyper-V virtual machine. With that being said, there is a difference between can and is supported. Remember that your Windows NT, 2000, DOS 3.3 and OS/2 Warp VMs are not supported by Microsoft… even though they will work just fine
For Bonus Points:
What is possible technologically is not always allowed legally. It is important to make sure that all of the operating systems in your VMs are licensed on that host. I have seen too many companies perform P2V migrations of physical servers that had OEM licenses attached to them, only to discover during an audit that they were out of compliance. Make sure you have verified all of your licensing so that nobody will get their nose out of joint
Recently I sat down with Kevin Remde from Microsoft’s US DPE team to discuss virtualization in Windows 8. We had a great discussion about VDI, client-side Hyper-V, and a lot of other interesting options. Let us know what you think! -M
In December I sat down with Kevin Remde, Technical Evangelist with Microsoft USA, to discuss how Windows 8 now includes Microsoft Hyper-V. It is a great conversation about why you might want to use the power of Hyper-V virtualization on the desktop, what is required, and how to get started. I invite you to watch and listen in, and comment! -M
When I was asked in class recently what type of virtualization hosts are supported by System Center 2012 though Virtual Machine Manager I readily answered off the top of my head. Unfortunately one of my students went on-line to search for confirmation of this, and came up with a TechNet article that gave a conflicting answer (http://technet.microsoft.com/library/gg697603.aspx).
While it does conflict with my answer, I have tried all of the environments that I listed and they all work just fine. So here is my list of supported hosts in System Center 2012 SP1.
Hyper-V:
Windows Server 2012 (full installation, Server Core, or MinShell)
Windows Server 2008 R2 (full installation or Server Core)
vSphere:
ESXi 5.1
ESXi 5.0
ESX 4.1
ESXi 4.1
ESX 4.0
ESXi 4.0
Citrix:
XenServer 6.1
XenServer 6.0
Citrix XenServer – Microsoft System Center Integration Pack
This article was originally published on the Canadian IT Pro Connection.
Some veteran IT Pros hear the term ‘Microsoft Clustering’ and their hearts start racing. That’s because once upon a time Microsoft Cluster Services was very difficult and complicated. In Windows Server 2008 it became much easier, and in Windows Server 2012 it is now available in all editions of the product, including Windows Server Standard. Owing to these two factors you are now seeing all sorts of organizations using Failover Clustering that would previously have shied away from it.
The service that we are seeing clustered most frequently in smaller organizations is Hyper-V virtual machines. That is because virtualization is another feature that is really taking off, and the low cost of virtualizing using Hyper-V makes it very attractive to these organizations.
In this article I am going to take you through the process of creating a failover cluster from two virtualization hosts that are connected to a single SAN (storage area network) device. However in Windows Server 2012 these are far from the limits. You can actually cluster up to sixty-four servers together in a single cluster. Once they are joined to the cluster we call them cluster nodes.
Failover Clustering in Windows Server 2012 allows us to create highly available virtual machines using a method called Active-Passive clustering. That means that your virtual machine is active on one cluster node, and the other nodes are only involved when the active node becomes unresponsive, or if a tool that is used to dynamically balance the workloads (such as System Center 2012 with Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) Tips) initiates a migration.
In addition to using SAN disks for your shared storage, Windows Server 2012 also allows you to use Storage Pools. I explained Storage Pools and showed you how to create them in my article Storage Pools: Dive Right In! I also explained how to create a virtual SAN using Windows Server 2012 in my article iSCSI Storage in Windows Server 2012. For the sake of this article, we will use the simple SAN target that we created together in that article.
Step 1: Enabling Failover Clustering
Failover Clustering is a feature on Windows Server 2012. In order to enable it we will use the Add Roles and Features wizard.
1. From Server Manager click Manage, and then select Add Roles and Features.
2. On the Before you begin page click Next>
3. On the Select installation type page select Role-based or feature-based installation and click Next>
4. On the Select destination server page select the server onto which you will install the role, and click Next>
5. On the Select server roles page click Next>
6. On the Select features page select the checkbox Failover Clustering. A pop-up will appear asking you to confirm that you want to install the MMC console and management tools for Failover Clustering. Click Add Features. Click Next>
7. On the Confirm installation selections page click Install.
NOTE: You could also add the Failover Clustering feature to your server using PowerShell. The script would be:
That is all that we have to do to enable Failover Clustering in our hosts. Remember though, it does have to be done on each server that will be a member of our cluster.
Step 2: Creating a Failover Cluster
Now that Failover Clustering has been enabled on the servers that we want to join to the cluster, we have to actually create the cluster. This step is easier than it ever was, although you should take care to follow the recommended guidelines. Always run the Validation Tests (all of them!), and allow Failover Cluster Manager to determine the best cluster configuration (Node Majority, Node and Disk Majority, etc…)
NOTE: The following steps have to be performed only once – not on each cluster node.
1. From Server Manager click Tools and select Failover Cluster Manager from the drop-down list.
2. In the details pane under Management click Create Cluster…
3. On the Before you begin page click Next>
4. On the Select Servers page enter the name of each server that you will add to the cluster and click Add. When all of your servers are listed click Next>
5. On the Validation Warning page ensure the Yes. When I click Next, run configuration validation tests, and then return to the process of creating the cluster radio is selected, then click Next>
6. On the Before You Begin page click Next>
7. On the Testing Options page ensure the Run all tests (recommended) radio is selected and then click Next>
8. On the Confirmation page click Next> to begin the validation process.
9. Once the validation process is complete you are prompted to name your cluster and assign an IP address. Do so now, making sure that your IP address is in the same subnet as your nodes.
NOTE: If you are not prompted to provide an IP address it is likely that your nodes have their IP Addresses assigned by DHCP.
10. On the Confirmation page make sure the checkbox Add all eligible storage is selected and click Next>. The cluster will now be created.
11. Click on Finish. In a few seconds your new cluster will appear in the Navigation Pane.
Step 3: Configuring your Failover Cluster
Now that your failover cluster has been created there are a couple of things we are going to verify. The first is in the main cluster screen. Near the top it should say the type of cluster you have.
If you created your cluster with an even number of nodes (and at least two shared drives) then the type should be a node and disk majority. In a Microsoft cluster health is determined when a majority (50% +1) of votes are counted. Every node has a vote. This means that if you have an even number of nodes (say 10) and half of them (5) go offline then your cluster goes down. If you have ten nodes you would have long since taken action, but imagine you have two nodes and one of them goes down… that means your entire cluster would go down. So Failover Clustering uses node and disk majority – it takes the smallest drive shared by all nodes (I usually create a 1GB LUN) and configures it as the Quorum drive – it gives it a vote… so if one of the nodes in your two node cluster goes down, you still have a majority of votes, and your cluster stays on-line.
The next thing that you want to check is your nodes. Expand the Nodes tree in the navigation pane and make sure that all of your nodes are up.
Once this is done you should check your storage. Expand the Storage tree in the navigation pane, and then expand Disks. If you followed my articles you should have two disks – one large one (mine is 140GB) and a small one (mine is 1GB). The smaller disk should be marked as assigned to Disk Witness in Quorum, and the larger disk will be assigned to Available Storage.
Cluster Shared Volumes was introduced in Windows Server 2008R2. It creates a contiguous namespace for your SAN LUNs on all of the nodes in your cluster. In other words, rather than having to ensure that all of your LUNs have the same drive letter on each node, CSVs create a link – a portal if you will – on your C: under the directory C:\ClusterStorage. Each LUN would have its own subdirectory – C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1, C:\ClusterStorage\Volume2, and so on. However using CSVs means that you are no longer limited to a single VM per LUN, so you will likely need fewer.
CSVs are enabled by default, and all you have to do is right-click on any drive assigned to Available Storage, and click Add to Cluster Shared Volumes. It will only take a second to work.
NOTE: While CSVs create directories on your C drive that is completely navigable, it is never a good idea to use it for anything other than Hyper-V. No other use is supported.
Step 4: Creating a Highly Available Virtual Machine (HAVM)
Virtual machines are no different to Failover Cluster Manager than any other clustered role. As such, that is where we create them!
1. In the navigation pane of Failover Cluster Manager expand your cluster and click Roles.
2. In the Actions Pane click Virtual Machines… and click New Virtual Machine.
3. In the New Virtual Machine screen select the node on which you want to create the new VM and click OK.
The New Virtual Machine Wizard runs just like it would in Hyper-V Manager. The only thing you would do differently here is change the file locations for your VM and VHDX files. In the appropriate places ensure they are stored under C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1.
At this point your highly available virtual machine has been created, and can be failed over without delay!
Step 5: Making an existing virtual machine highly available
In all likelihood you are not starting from the ground up, and you probably have pre-existing virtual machines that you would like to add to the cluster. No problem… However before you go, you need to put the VM’s storage onto shared storage. Because Windows Server 2012 includes Live Storage Migration it is very easy to do:
1. In Hyper-V Manager right-click the virtual machine that you would like to make highly available and click Move…
2. In the Choose Move Type screen select the radio Move the virtual machine’s storage and click Next>
3. In the Choose Options for Moving Storage screen select the radio marked Move all of the virtual machine’s data to a single location and click Next>
4. In the Choose a new location for virtual machine type C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1 into the field. Alternately you could click Browse… and navigate to the shared file location. Then click Next>
5. On the Completing Move Wizard page verify your selections and click Finish.
Remember that moving a running VM’s storage can take a long time. The VHD or VHDX file could theoretically be huge… depending on the size you selected. Be patient, it will just take a few minutes. Once it is done you can continue with the following steps.
6. In Failover Cluster Manager navigate to the Roles tab.
7. In the Actions Pane click Configure Role…
8. In the Select Role screen select Virtual Machine from the list and click Next>. This step can take a few minutes… be patient!
9. In the Select Virtual Machine screen select the virtual machine that you want to make highly available and click Next>
NOTE: A great improvement in Windows Server 2012 is the ability to make a VM highly available regardless of its state. In previous versions you needed to shut down the VM to do this… no more!
10. On the Confirmation screen click Next>
…That’s it! Your VM is now highly available. You can navigate to Nodes and see which server it is running on. You can also right-click on it, click Move, select Live Migration, and click Select Node. Select the node you want to move it to, and you will see it move before your very eyes… without any downtime.
What? There’s a Video??
Yes, We wanted you to read through all of this, but we also wrote it as a reference guide that you can refer to when you try to build it yourself. However to make your life slightly easier, we also created a video for you and posted it online. Check it out!
Creating and configuring Failover Clustering for Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012
For Extra Credit!
Now that you have added your virtualization hosts as nodes in a cluster, you will probably be creating more of your VMs on Cluster Shared Volumes than not. In the Hyper-V Settings you can change the default file locations for both your VMs and your VHDX files to C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1. This will prevent your having to enter them each time.
As well, the best way to create your VMs will be in the Failover Cluster Manager and not in Hyper-V Manager. FCM creates your VMs as HAVMs automatically, without your having to perform those extra steps.
Conclusion
Over the last few weeks we have demonstrated how to Create a Storage Pool, perform a Shared Nothing Live Migration, Create an iSCSI Software Target in Windows Server 2012, and finally how to create and configure Failover Clusters in Windows Server 2012. Now that you have all of this knowledge at your fingertips (Or at least the links to remind you of it!) you should be prepared to build your virtualization environment like a pro. Before you forget what we taught you, go ahead and do it. Try it out, make mistakes, and figure out what went wrong so that you can fix it. In due time you will be an expert in all of these topics, and will wonder how you ever lived without them. Good luck, and let us know how it goes for you!
