Hyper-V cluster

Hello,

I am new to hyper-v and windows 2008 clustering, but I do have experience
with windows 2003 clustering and virtual server.

What I need to achieve is a 3 node hyper-v cluster. This will be running
many VMs and they will be grouped and SAN attached.

So we may have 8 cluster groups each with its own area on the SAN for the
VMs and it will contain its own set of high availability virtual machines.

We could have all 8 groups running on Server A or we could have 2 on A 2 on
B and 4 on C.

We need to be able to move groups from server to server.

First of all, can we do this?

My second question is about migrating a 3 standalone Virtual server servers
to a Hyper-V cluster with 3 server. Note our existing platform is not SAN
attached, all the VMS are on local disks.

We already have the 3 servers running virtual server, we can only take one
down at a time. To keep this simple I will assume we only have 3 groups.

Our 3 servers are (Virtual Server A,B and C)

VSA,VSB,VSC

They will become

HVA,HVB,HVC (Hyper-V A,B and C)

We intend to do the following :

1. Backup the VHDs on VSA and rebuild VSA as HVA with Windows 2008.
2. Install clustering on HVA, Install Hyper-V on HVA.
3. Create a cluster group (GROUP A)
4. Add a DISK to GROUP A , DISKA (This is on our SAN)
5. Restore the VHDs to the shared disk
6. Add the VHDs to Hyper-V and make them highly available in Cluster
Manager.
7. This gets us running with Hyper-V (a few weeks will pass)
8. Backup the VHDs on VSB and rebuild VSB as HVB with Windows 2008.
9. Install clustering on HVB, Install Hyper-V on HVB.
10. Add this server to the cluster
11. Add this server as a fail over node to group A
12. Test fail over of GROUP A
13. Create cluster group (GROUP B)
14. Add a disk to GROUP B, DISK B (Again from the SAN)
15. Restore the VHDs to the shared disk (DISK B)
16. Add the VHDs to Hyper-V and make them highly available in Cluster
Manager.
17. We now have 2 cluster groups and 2 servers.
18. Follow same theme for adding 3rd server, do we need to do anything
special to make the 3rd server easy to add?


Thanks

Steve

I'm not sure what you mean by "groups." Failover Clustering configures each
service or application separately, including Virtual Machines. Each VM
should contain a Virtual Machine resource, a Virtual Machine Configuration
resource and one (or more) disk(s). This will also affect your proposed
migration plan using groups. I'd recommend reading more about 2008 Failover
Clustering to develop a better understanding and also working with the
technologies in your test environment prior to undertaking a full-scale
production migration.

Hope this helps,
--Ryan

--
Ryan Sokolowski
MVP - Clustering
MCT, MCITP x3, MCTS x8, MCSE x2, CCNA, CCDA, BCFP


"Steve Drake" <> wrote in message
news:0E3044EA-61F6-4DF7-A6B0-...
> Hello,
>
> I am new to hyper-v and windows 2008 clustering, but I do have experience
> with windows 2003 clustering and virtual server.
>
> What I need to achieve is a 3 node hyper-v cluster. This will be running
> many VMs and they will be grouped and SAN attached.
>
> So we may have 8 cluster groups each with its own area on the SAN for the
> VMs and it will contain its own set of high availability virtual machines.
>
> We could have all 8 groups running on Server A or we could have 2 on A 2
> on B and 4 on C.
>
> We need to be able to move groups from server to server.
>
> First of all, can we do this?
>
> My second question is about migrating a 3 standalone Virtual server
> servers to a Hyper-V cluster with 3 server. Note our existing platform is
> not SAN attached, all the VMS are on local disks.
>
> We already have the 3 servers running virtual server, we can only take one
> down at a time. To keep this simple I will assume we only have 3 groups.
>
> Our 3 servers are (Virtual Server A,B and C)
>
> VSA,VSB,VSC
>
> They will become
>
> HVA,HVB,HVC (Hyper-V A,B and C)
>
> We intend to do the following :
>
> 1. Backup the VHDs on VSA and rebuild VSA as HVA with Windows 2008.
> 2. Install clustering on HVA, Install Hyper-V on HVA.
> 3. Create a cluster group (GROUP A)
> 4. Add a DISK to GROUP A , DISKA (This is on our SAN)
> 5. Restore the VHDs to the shared disk
> 6. Add the VHDs to Hyper-V and make them highly available in Cluster
> Manager.
> 7. This gets us running with Hyper-V (a few weeks will pass)
> 8. Backup the VHDs on VSB and rebuild VSB as HVB with Windows 2008.
> 9. Install clustering on HVB, Install Hyper-V on HVB.
> 10. Add this server to the cluster
> 11. Add this server as a fail over node to group A
> 12. Test fail over of GROUP A
> 13. Create cluster group (GROUP B)
> 14. Add a disk to GROUP B, DISK B (Again from the SAN)
> 15. Restore the VHDs to the shared disk (DISK B)
> 16. Add the VHDs to Hyper-V and make them highly available in Cluster
> Manager.
> 17. We now have 2 cluster groups and 2 servers.
> 18. Follow same theme for adding 3rd server, do we need to do anything
> special to make the 3rd server easy to add?
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Steve

Thanks for your input.

I have read more today, with a hotfix released some time ago you can now
have more than one vm in a group.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951308/en-us

from the above hotfix

"Allow for more than one virtual machine in a "Services or Applications"
group
Before you install this update, only one virtual machine can be selected in
the High Availability Wizard. Additionally, there is no method that you can
use to add a virtual machine to a Services or Applications group by using
the Failover Cluster Management console."

when I say group, I mean as its used above. I presume we can have more than
one Service or Application group? I do need to read more and have a play

But it does talk about SCVMM not being able to manage it. (I am going to
look into this)

We cannot really test as we don't have spare kit, we are going to
incrementally upgrade our old 2003
servers running VS to 2008 running hyper-v.

We use virtualization for development so we have lots of VMS, but they
are not all running at the same time. We have well over 150VM with only
about 20 - 30 of
them running. At present we sometimes find our self with ONE server doing
90% of the work, this is why we are looking into clustering. We will have
more than one group each with a number of VMS. If a server is doing to much
work we will move groups away from it. Off course we could find ourselves
with lots of servers active in one group but this is very unlikely due to
the way the groups split.

To be honest, after more reading I am confident that we wont have any
problems. But any comments are more than welcome.

Steve





"Ryan Sokolowski [MVP]" <> wrote in message
news:5FEB3DB6-9902-4155-8DA4-...
> I'm not sure what you mean by "groups." Failover Clustering configures
> each service or application separately, including Virtual Machines. Each
> VM should contain a Virtual Machine resource, a Virtual Machine
> Configuration resource and one (or more) disk(s). This will also affect
> your proposed migration plan using groups. I'd recommend reading more
> about 2008 Failover Clustering to develop a better understanding and also
> working with the technologies in your test environment prior to
> undertaking a full-scale production migration.
>
> Hope this helps,
> --Ryan
>
> --
> Ryan Sokolowski
> MVP - Clustering
> MCT, MCITP x3, MCTS x8, MCSE x2, CCNA, CCDA, BCFP
>
>
> "Steve Drake" <> wrote in message
> news:0E3044EA-61F6-4DF7-A6B0-...
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am new to hyper-v and windows 2008 clustering, but I do have experience
>> with windows 2003 clustering and virtual server.
>>
>> What I need to achieve is a 3 node hyper-v cluster. This will be running
>> many VMs and they will be grouped and SAN attached.
>>
>> So we may have 8 cluster groups each with its own area on the SAN for the
>> VMs and it will contain its own set of high availability virtual
>> machines.
>>
>> We could have all 8 groups running on Server A or we could have 2 on A 2
>> on B and 4 on C.
>>
>> We need to be able to move groups from server to server.
>>
>> First of all, can we do this?
>>
>> My second question is about migrating a 3 standalone Virtual server
>> servers to a Hyper-V cluster with 3 server. Note our existing platform is
>> not SAN attached, all the VMS are on local disks.
>>
>> We already have the 3 servers running virtual server, we can only take
>> one down at a time. To keep this simple I will assume we only have 3
>> groups.
>>
>> Our 3 servers are (Virtual Server A,B and C)
>>
>> VSA,VSB,VSC
>>
>> They will become
>>
>> HVA,HVB,HVC (Hyper-V A,B and C)
>>
>> We intend to do the following :
>>
>> 1. Backup the VHDs on VSA and rebuild VSA as HVA with Windows 2008.
>> 2. Install clustering on HVA, Install Hyper-V on HVA.
>> 3. Create a cluster group (GROUP A)
>> 4. Add a DISK to GROUP A , DISKA (This is on our SAN)
>> 5. Restore the VHDs to the shared disk
>> 6. Add the VHDs to Hyper-V and make them highly available in Cluster
>> Manager.
>> 7. This gets us running with Hyper-V (a few weeks will pass)
>> 8. Backup the VHDs on VSB and rebuild VSB as HVB with Windows 2008.
>> 9. Install clustering on HVB, Install Hyper-V on HVB.
>> 10. Add this server to the cluster
>> 11. Add this server as a fail over node to group A
>> 12. Test fail over of GROUP A
>> 13. Create cluster group (GROUP B)
>> 14. Add a disk to GROUP B, DISK B (Again from the SAN)
>> 15. Restore the VHDs to the shared disk (DISK B)
>> 16. Add the VHDs to Hyper-V and make them highly available in Cluster
>> Manager.
>> 17. We now have 2 cluster groups and 2 servers.
>> 18. Follow same theme for adding 3rd server, do we need to do anything
>> special to make the 3rd server easy to add?
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Steve
>

Right, as this states, if there is more than one virtual machine in a group,
you may receive the following error message when you try to manage those
virtual machines from System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008:
Unsupported Cluster configuration.

SCVMM does not support managing virtual machines if there is more than one
virtual machine in a group.

Likely an issue that many will face.

--
Ryan Sokolowski
MVP - Clustering
MCT, MCITP x3, MCTS x8, MCSE x2, CCNA, CCDA, BCFP


"Steve Drake" <> wrote in message
news:%...
> Thanks for your input.
>
> I have read more today, with a hotfix released some time ago you can now
> have more than one vm in a group.
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951308/en-us
>
> from the above hotfix
>
> "Allow for more than one virtual machine in a "Services or Applications"
> group
> Before you install this update, only one virtual machine can be selected
> in
> the High Availability Wizard. Additionally, there is no method that you
> can
> use to add a virtual machine to a Services or Applications group by using
> the Failover Cluster Management console."
>
> when I say group, I mean as its used above. I presume we can have more
> than
> one Service or Application group? I do need to read more and have a play
>
>
> But it does talk about SCVMM not being able to manage it. (I am going to
> look into this)
>
> We cannot really test as we don't have spare kit, we are going to
> incrementally upgrade our old 2003
> servers running VS to 2008 running hyper-v.
>
> We use virtualization for development so we have lots of VMS, but they
> are not all running at the same time. We have well over 150VM with only
> about 20 - 30 of
> them running. At present we sometimes find our self with ONE server doing
> 90% of the work, this is why we are looking into clustering. We will have
> more than one group each with a number of VMS. If a server is doing to
> much
> work we will move groups away from it. Off course we could find ourselves
> with lots of servers active in one group but this is very unlikely due to
> the way the groups split.
>
> To be honest, after more reading I am confident that we wont have any
> problems. But any comments are more than welcome.
>
> Steve
>
>
>
>
>
> "Ryan Sokolowski [MVP]" <> wrote in message
> news:5FEB3DB6-9902-4155-8DA4-...
>> I'm not sure what you mean by "groups." Failover Clustering configures
>> each service or application separately, including Virtual Machines. Each
>> VM should contain a Virtual Machine resource, a Virtual Machine
>> Configuration resource and one (or more) disk(s). This will also affect
>> your proposed migration plan using groups. I'd recommend reading more
>> about 2008 Failover Clustering to develop a better understanding and also
>> working with the technologies in your test environment prior to
>> undertaking a full-scale production migration.
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>> --Ryan
>>
>> --
>> Ryan Sokolowski
>> MVP - Clustering
>> MCT, MCITP x3, MCTS x8, MCSE x2, CCNA, CCDA, BCFP
>>
>>
>> "Steve Drake" <> wrote in message
>> news:0E3044EA-61F6-4DF7-A6B0-...
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I am new to hyper-v and windows 2008 clustering, but I do have
>>> experience
>>> with windows 2003 clustering and virtual server.
>>>
>>> What I need to achieve is a 3 node hyper-v cluster. This will be running
>>> many VMs and they will be grouped and SAN attached.
>>>
>>> So we may have 8 cluster groups each with its own area on the SAN for
>>> the
>>> VMs and it will contain its own set of high availability virtual
>>> machines.
>>>
>>> We could have all 8 groups running on Server A or we could have 2 on A 2
>>> on B and 4 on C.
>>>
>>> We need to be able to move groups from server to server.
>>>
>>> First of all, can we do this?
>>>
>>> My second question is about migrating a 3 standalone Virtual server
>>> servers to a Hyper-V cluster with 3 server. Note our existing platform
>>> is
>>> not SAN attached, all the VMS are on local disks.
>>>
>>> We already have the 3 servers running virtual server, we can only take
>>> one down at a time. To keep this simple I will assume we only have 3
>>> groups.
>>>
>>> Our 3 servers are (Virtual Server A,B and C)
>>>
>>> VSA,VSB,VSC
>>>
>>> They will become
>>>
>>> HVA,HVB,HVC (Hyper-V A,B and C)
>>>
>>> We intend to do the following :
>>>
>>> 1. Backup the VHDs on VSA and rebuild VSA as HVA with Windows 2008.
>>> 2. Install clustering on HVA, Install Hyper-V on HVA.
>>> 3. Create a cluster group (GROUP A)
>>> 4. Add a DISK to GROUP A , DISKA (This is on our SAN)
>>> 5. Restore the VHDs to the shared disk
>>> 6. Add the VHDs to Hyper-V and make them highly available in Cluster
>>> Manager.
>>> 7. This gets us running with Hyper-V (a few weeks will pass)
>>> 8. Backup the VHDs on VSB and rebuild VSB as HVB with Windows 2008.
>>> 9. Install clustering on HVB, Install Hyper-V on HVB.
>>> 10. Add this server to the cluster
>>> 11. Add this server as a fail over node to group A
>>> 12. Test fail over of GROUP A
>>> 13. Create cluster group (GROUP B)
>>> 14. Add a disk to GROUP B, DISK B (Again from the SAN)
>>> 15. Restore the VHDs to the shared disk (DISK B)
>>> 16. Add the VHDs to Hyper-V and make them highly available in Cluster
>>> Manager.
>>> 17. We now have 2 cluster groups and 2 servers.
>>> 18. Follow same theme for adding 3rd server, do we need to do anything
>>> special to make the 3rd server easy to add?
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Steve
>>
>