Hi all,
I have been using QNAP storage device (NAS storage) as the storage for my Hyper-v fail over cluster successfully. I currently have two Hyper-V servers in the cluster. Each server is conneted to QNAP via iscsi. The cluster shared volume which include all my virtual machines is located in one QNAP storage device as a 'LUN'. Generally speaking, it is a IP SAN environment. I now want to create a fully redundant setup using a Hyper-V cluster consisting of two clustered Hyper-V servers, two 10GB switches and two QNAP device. The final result would be a configuration in which ANY single device could fail but the overall system would continue to function. The redundant switches are easy to set up. Now the problem is I want two QNAP device can synchronize the cluster shared volume. Unfortunately QNAP did not provide such solution.
Some experts have suggested me to use third-party software such as Veeam or Starwind, which are good choices. But additional license fee is required.
So what about windows server 2012? In Server 2012 live migration of non-clustered VMs can be done and most importantly two hyper-v server don't have to share the the same volume (previously known as CSV) . This is incredible! So here are my new plans with Server 2012:
1. Install Windows server 2012 with hyper 3.0 on two hyper-v hosts. Host A connects to NAS A via ISCSI initiator, and host B connects to NAS B via ISCSI initiator.
2. Put 10 VMs host A, and the rest of 30 VMs on host B. No fail over-cluster is configured. (All VMs are running non-critical services)
3. Configure hyper-v replication to make sure that each NAS has a copy of VMs located on the other NAS. (e.g. The replication is done every 30 min)
In the scenario above. If any host A is down, I can still manually boot up the copy of 10 VMs on host B. If NAS A is down, I also can manually boot up the copy of 10 VMs on host B since NAS B hold a copy of these 10 VMs
Am I wrong? If so, please let me know because I believe it is possible to achieve hyper-v ' high availability', though it is done manually
Any advice is appreciated..