Creating Hyper-V Failover Cluster (Part 1)

Intro

This will be two part series on how to configure and test Hyper-V Live Migration scenario without using hardware storage. To recreate this demo you will need 3 physical machines with 2 network cards in each (although 3 is recommended for nodes and 2 for storage server), Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Server, Windows 2008 Storage Server and for the last demo, you will need SCVMM 2008 R2 installation disk. In both videos, language is Croatian.

Setup:

In the first part I will explain and show how to configure storage and failover cluster. At the end, you will learn how to add virtual machine as clustered resource and how to invoke controlled Live migration.

Configuring Windows 2008 Storage Server for iSCSI

First, obtain Windows 2008 Storage Server from the MSDN site and also download Windows Server iSCSI CD. Steps for configuring iSCSI target on storage server:

1. Install Windows 2008 Storage Server x64 (name it SAN or whatever you like)
2. Install latest patches and service packs
3. Create domain on it (not recommended, only for demo purposes)
4. Install iSCSI x64 target
5. From Administrative tools start „Microsoft iSCSI Software Target“
6. Right click on iSCSI Target and Create new one
   1. Type in name (eg. Storage)
   2. On iSCSI initiators Identifiers page click advanced and add IP addresses of your two nodes that will be accessing this target
7. Repeat step 5 and create another target and name it „Quorum“
8. Now we have to create disk for iSCSI target
9. Right click on Storage iSCSI target and select third option from the top
   1. On File option enter location of vhd file (eg. C:\storage.vhd)
   2. Enter size of the disk (min. 30 GB)
10. Repeat step 8 for Quorum iSCSI target (eg. C:\quorum.vhd, min 512 MB )

Now we have created two disk resources on our storage server.

Adding disk resources to NODE1 and NODE2

1. Install Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise on two remaining computers (I named them NODE1 and NODE2 for easier management)
2. Install latest patches and service packs
3. Connect two nodes via private network
4. Add both nodes to domain created on SAN storage server
5. Install Hyper-V role and Failover Cluster feature on both nodes
6. Shutdown NODE2 (IMPORTANT)
7. On NODE1 start iSCSI initiator from Administrative tools
   1. Select Yes to start automatically if asked
   2. Select OK to open required ports (for demo purposes you can disable firewall on all three computers, but for production open required ports manually)
   3. Select Discovery
   4. Click Discover Portal
   5. Enter IP Address of SAN server and click OK
   6. Select Targets (you should see two targets)
   7. Select each target and click Connect
   8. Select Volumes and Devices
   9. Click Auto Configure
   10. Click OK
8. Open Disk Management tool from Server manager Console
9. Scroll down until you see two new disks
10. Bring them Online, Initialize them and format them with NTFS
11. Smaller disk (Quorum) select Q as drive letter
12. Larger disk (Storage) select J as drive letter
13. Shutdown NODE1
14. Startup NODE2
15. Repeat steps 7 – 12 on NODE2 (you will not need to format disks again, drive letters must be same as on NODE1)
16. Startup NODE1

Now we have two nodes that are connected to the same iSCSI targets on SAN server.

Creating Failover Cluster

1. On NODE1 start Failover Cluster Manger console
2. In the middle pane, click Validate a Configuration
   1. Add all nodes that will be part of a cluster
   2. Run all tests
   3. All result should be green (ignore errors about updates)
3. Select option Create Cluster
4. Add all nodes and enter cluster name
5. When cluster is created in the tree pane right click on Storage and add both disks to it (cluster will automatically configure smaller disk, Quorum, as witness and larger disk, Storage, as storage disk)
6. Select your cluster name in the left pane
7. In the middle pane select Cluster Core Resources and verify that they are all online
   1. Usually you will have to change Cluster IP address from automatic to manual, after that, bring all failed resources online

Our Failover Cluster is now complete.

Creating highly available virtual machine

Now you can minimize Failover Cluster Manager Console on NODE1 and open Server Manager or Hyper-V console. Before you start, on NODE1 and NODE2, create new Virtual Network (External) that is connected to one of your physical network adapters (not Cluster Private Adapters).

1. Copy Windows Server 2008 ISO file to J disk on NODE1 (J disk is our iSCSI disk)
2. Open Hyper-V console, right click on NODE1 and create new virtual machine
3. Name it (eg. FailoverDemo)
4. Store it on J disk (IMPORTANT)
5. Give it 1024 MB of RAM
6. Connect it to previously created network
7. Create new virtual disk, size 20 GB on J disk (IMPORTANT)
8. On installation options select second bullet and select ISO image that you copied on J disk
9. Click Finish
10. Right click on newly created Virtual machine and select Settings
11. On the lover left side select Automatic Start action and select Nothing
12. Click OK

Now you can minimize Hyper-V console and maximize Failover Cluster Manager Console.

1. Right click Services and applications and select Configure a Service or Application
2. Find Virtual Machine near the bottom, select it and click next
3. Select newly created virtual machine and click Next

Our virtual machine is now configured as highly available. Restore Hyper-V console and start your virtual machine. It should boot from ISO DVD image that is attached to it and install Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. After installation is completed, install latest Hyper-V additions into the virtual machine.

Migrating virtual machine from NODE1 to NODE2

1. Restore Failover Cluster Manager console
2. Select Services and applications
3. Right click on your virtual machine (it should be running)
4. Select Live migrate virtual machine to another node and select NODE2

After couple of minutes (no more than 2 – 3) virtual machine should be migrated to NODE2. You can test the migration process by pinging virtual machine (ping IP address -t) while it is being migrated. Ping loss should be only one or max two packets (due to the fact that migration is done by using iSCSI disks and not real storage). Here is the video of the procedure and controlled failover.

In the second part I will explain how to install SCVMM 2008 R2, add our cluster to it and how to migrate virtual machine from one node to another using SCVMM 2008 R2 administrator console.

Related posts:

1. Creating Hyper-V Failover Cluster (Part 2)
2. Windows Server 8 Failover Cluster and Replica–Part 1
3. VPC 2007 inside Hyper-V 2.0
4. Preparing for Windays 2010
5. Creating virtual environment for testing purposes–Best practices

Tagged as: Failover cluster, Hyper-V, Live migration, Virtualization, Windows Server 2008 R2