High-Availability Platform for Applications with Shared Data

Massive scalability with support for 64 physical nodes & 8,000 VMs. Cluster physical servers (host clusters), virtual machines (guest cluster), and SMB Scale Out File Servers (storage cluster). Built-in hardware and software validation tests to ensure compliance and to offer guidance to fix misconfigurations. Redundant networks and teamed NICs supporting IPv4 and/or IPv6. Shared storage using SMB, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) or SerialAttached SCSI (SAS).

Failover Clustering

Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) is a distributedaccess file system allowing multiple VMs to write to the same disk.

A cluster is a coordinated, distributed system

All cluster nodes can access the same shared storage. VMs run on the host, but store their data (.vhdx) on shared storage. Nodes monitor the health of each other through cluster networks.

Cluster Communication

If a node fails or is partitioned, the health check fails, and failover actions take place.
The VMs or roles will restart on another node, reading the applications data from the shared disk.

Integrated Solution for Resilient Virtual Machines

Uses quorum, a state, to determine how many elements must be online for the cluster to continue running. Nodes, disks or file shares can have a vote. There must always be an odd number of votes across the cluster. After a network partition, this ensure that one group of voters (nodes or disks) has the quorum (majority) of votes. 2012 introduced Dynamic Quorum to toggle disk voting to ensure odd votes. Reduced AD dependencies so contact with a DC is not required for cluster to start. Drain Roles to evacuate host for maintenance.

Cluster Dynamic Quorum Configuration

Optimal cluster configuration requires multiple networks

Host Management - Used for managing the Hyper-V hosts through RDP, Hyper-V Manager, Virtual Machine Manager etc. VM Access - Dedicated NIC(s) on the nodes for VMs to use to communicate out onto the network Live Migration - Network dedicated to the transmission of live migration traffic Cluster Communications- Preferred network used by the cluster for communications to maintain cluster health. Also, used by Cluster Shared Volumes to send data between owner and non-owner nodes. If storage access is interrupted, this network is used to access the Cluster Shared Volumes or to maintain and back up the Cluster Shared Volumes Storage (Optional) Used by the hosts to communicate with their iSCSI or SMB storage

Cluster Networking

Construction of Hyper-V Clusters, Integrated into VMM

Hyper-V Clusters provide VM resiliency, so that in the event of host failure, VMs automatically restart on other physical hosts. Creation Replaces the use of Failover Cluster Manager to create a Hyper-V Cluster. Add Hosts VMM will utilize hosts that are already under management and not clustered Validation VMM will trigger the validation of the cluster configuration to ensure solid foundation. Skipping optional. Storage & Networks Select and configure currently exposed storage and logical networks

Ensure Optimal VM Placement and Restart Operations

Failover Priority ensures certain VMs start before others on the cluster Affinity rules allow VMs to reside on certain hosts in the cluster Preferred and Possible Ownership help to control where VMs run. AntiAffinityClassNames helps to keep virtual machines apart on separate physical cluster nodes

Anti-Affinity keeps related VMs apart Upon failover, VMs restart priority order Hyper-V cluster with VMs in on each node

AntiAffinityClassNames exposed through VMM as Availability Set

Monitor Health of Applications Inside Clustered VMs

Upon service failure, Service Control Manager inside guest will attempt to restart the service After 3 failures, Cluster Service will trigger event log entry 1250 VM State = Application in VM Critical VM can be automatically restarted on the same node Upon subsequent failure, VM can be failed over and restarted on alternative node Extensible by Partners

Optimizing cluster resource usage by virtual machines

Load Balancing VMM keeps the cluster balanced across the different nodes, moving VMs around without downtime Heterogeneous Supports load balancing on Hyper-V, vSphere & XenServer clusters

Resources looks at CPU, Memory, Disk IO and Network IO - when the resource usage goes above the DO threshold, VMM orchestrates live migrations of VMs
User Controlled configurable frequency, and aggression level. Can be manually triggered, of enabled for automatic optimization

Reduces power consumption by Hyper-V hosts

Reduced Power Consumption VMM assesses the current cluster utilization and if the VMs can be run on fewer hosts, it will migrate VMs onto fewer hosts and power spares down Resources looks at CPU, Memory, Disk IO and Network IO - when the resource usage goes above the DO threshold, VMM orchestrates live migrations of VMs Configurable Admin specifies time for PO to operate, i.e. weekend, overnight, and if VMM deems it possible, it will power hosts down during this time. Hosts will be reactivated if demand increases.

Central patching of key hosts & management servers

Cluster-Aware Compliance Ensures all hosts are patches to a baseline without VM downtime
WSUS Integrates with WSUS and Configuration Manager Baselines Admins define patches that are to be deployed for compliance. These baselines are assigned to hosts/servers Scan for Compliance Scan the hosts/management servers against baselines to determine compliance Remediation VMM orchestrates the patching of the servers, moving VMs as necessary with Live Migration

VMware Comparison
Capability Integrated High Availability Maximum Cluster Size Maximum VMs per Cluster Failover Prioritization Affinity Rules Guest OS Application Monitoring Cluster-Aware Updating Hyper-V (2012 R2) Yes 64 Nodes 8,000 Yes Yes Yes Yes vSphere Hypervisor No1 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus Yes2 32 Nodes 4,000 Yes4 Yes4 Yes3 Yes4

vSphere Hypervisor / vSphere 5.x Ent+ Information: http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/compare.html and http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/08/11/vsphere-5-0-ha-applicationmonitoring-intro/, http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r55/vsphere-55-configuration-maximums.pdf, http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/features/application-HA.html

Complete Flexibility for Deploying App-Level HA

Full support for running clustered workloads on Hyper-V host cluster Guest Clusters that require shared storage can utilize software iSCSI, Virtual FC or SMB Full support for Live Migration of Guest Cluster Nodes Full Support for Dynamic Memory of Guest Cluster Nodes

Guest Cluster running on a physical Hyper-V Cluster node restarts on host failure Guest cluster nodes supported with Live Migration

Restart Priority, Possible & Preferred Ownership, & AntiAffinityClassNames help ensure optimal operation

Guest Clustering No Longer Bound to Storage Topology

VHDX files can be presented to multiple VMs simultaneously, as shared storage VM sees shared virtual SAS disk

Flexible choices for placement of Shared VHDX

Unrestricted number of VMs can connect to a shared VHDX file

Utilizes SCSI-persistent reservations VHDX can reside on a Cluster Shared Volume on block storage, or on File-based storage Supports both Dynamic and Fixed VHDX

Capability Max Size Guest Cluster (iSCSI) Max Size Guest Cluster (Fiber) Max Size Guest Cluster (File Based) Guest Clustering with Shared Virtual Disk Guest Clustering with Live Migration Support Guest Clustering with Dynamic Memory Support

Hyper-V (2012 R2) 64 Nodes 64 Nodes 64 Nodes Yes Yes Yes

vSphere Hypervisor 5 Nodes1 5 Nodes2 5 Nodes1 Yes6 N/A3 No5

vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus 5 Nodes1 5 Nodes2 5 Nodes1 Yes6 No4 No5

vSphere Hypervisor / vSphere 5.x Ent+ Information http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r55/vsphere-55-configuration-maximums.pdf, http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere55/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.mscs.doc%2FGUID-6BD834AE-69BB-4D0E-B0B6-7E176907E0C7.html, http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1037959

Microsoft Official Courses

Course 20409A: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center
5 days Instructor Led Hands-On Labs

Microsoft Certification
Exam 74-409: Server Virtualization with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center