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I have 2 identical servers: -48GB Ram -8GigE NIC's -2FC NIC's -2x72GB RAID1 Hard Drives -Server 2008R2 Host

I also Have a Fibre Channel SAN: -16x146GB RAID10 Hard Drives -2xDual-port FC Controllers (Controller A and B both have ports 1 and 2) -Server 1 has Fiber to Ports A1 and B1 -Server 2 has Fiber to Ports A2 and B2 -I kept the default config with 1 Virtual Disk and 1 Volume -The default mappings show ports A1,A2,B1,B2 on LUN 0 with read-write

My goal is: -2xVM's with IIS and Guest Level Failover -2xVM's with SQL 2008 Enterprise using a Single DB and Guest Level Failover -1xVM that is an application server, preferable with Host Failover. From what I read, this will also need AD for clustering to work. -I need at least 1 VM always running for IIS and the SQLDB. This includes hardware failover and application (ie: reboot a VM for Critical updates)

I was told I could install the VM's and run them from the SAN, and this is what I've tried: Installed MPIO and HyperV on Server1 and Server 2 Added the SAN as Disk E: on both servers, made it GPT and formatted NTFS Configured HyperV on both server to store use E:\VD and E:\VHD On server1, I was able to install 3 VM's on the SAN and all worked well. On server2, I would start installing the other 2 VM's, but always at some point the VM's would get a corrupt .VHD message (either server). Everything I found about the message typically related to antivirus, so I removed all antivirus on both Host servers (now only running 2008R2). I reformatted drive E: (SAN), recreated the VHD and VD directories, installed 3 VM's on Server 1, and then had the same issue when installing VM's on Server2. Obviously something is wrong, but I'm not certain what exactly.

My questions: 1) Are my goals possible with this hardware setup? -I've read 2008R2 supports FC SAN's, but a lot of articles seem to only give examples with iSCSCI setups 2) What would be the suggested route on setting up the SAN (disks,volumes,LUN's)?

I've worked with HyperV on a single machine before and never had issues. Actual experience working on SAN's and clustering is new to me. Any suggestions or recommendations to get me in the right direction would be much appreciated.

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    Who is SAN vendor? From reading through your question it looks like your hosts are directly connected to the SAN and not going through a switch, is that right? – Sim Feb 25 '10 at 22:44

2 Answers2

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Are you restricted to Hyper-V as the Hypervisor?

However the Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide and Hyper-V: Using Hyper-V and Failover Clustering is probably what you are after as a starting reference.

I haven't used Hyper-v but based on what I have read and use of VMware ESX what you are proposing shouldn't be a problem at all. FC or iSCSI shouldn't matter provided you have setup the base Storage, and Microsoft Clustering for Hyper-V properly. Probably best to go through the Microsoft documents and consider rebuilding your setup again if needed.

Have you got any information for configuring your SAN for use with Hyper-V from your SAN Vendor?

Sim
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Hyper-V doesn't get you guest-level failover unless you use iSCSI, with the iSCSI initiator in the guest OS, not the host.

Hyper-V does provide host-level failover. In order to set that up, expose the SAN to every member of the cluster and configure "Clustered Shared Volumes," the cluster file system that is included with Windows Server 2008 R2. Then put your VHD files on that.

You won't be able to mount a VHD file in two VMs. You will be able to run your VM on any member of your host cluster, with the host cluster providing high availability.

Jake Oshins
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