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I want to make a 2 node SQL Server 2012 cluster. Both nodes are virtual machines running Windows Server 2012 on Hyper-V.

I have a physical SAN available which I can use for clustered storage so I was hoping if someone could help about how to make clustered storage available to both nodes. Both nodes are using HBA fiber channels.

  1. How to make it work with iSCSI

  2. How to make it work without iSCSI

I want to be able to make several drives such as S, F, K e.t.c.

Thanks

Frank Martin
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1 Answers1

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If I understand the question correctly, you want to create a SQL cluster out of two VMs running inside Hyper-V on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts, correct?

In order to use shared disks (which you need) you have two options: 1. Virtual Fibre Channel 2. Iscsi

Virtual fibre channel lets you take an existing SAN and present it to a VM much the same way as you present it to a physical host. There are a few prerequisites though, so your SAN might not support this. A good description can be found here: Hyper-V Virtual Fibre Channel Design Guide

For iscsi, you can simply present your SAN as an Iscsi target to the clients. Your SAN might be able to do this natively, or you might need to present the SAN to some kind of NAS which again makes the storage accessible through iscsi. Windows Server can do this, and I'm sure any linux distro can do this as well.

Edit: Using Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012R2, which is just around the corner, you can implement shared vhdx diskfiles, as long as the vhdx resides on a SMB3 shared folder. This is described here: How does the shared VHDX file feature in Windows Server 2012 R2 work?

Trondh
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  • Yes you understood it correctly. Both nodes are not physical machines but virtual ones inside Hyper-V. Is there any article about configuring using iSCI just like you posted above about using Fibre Channel Design Guide? – Frank Martin Oct 07 '13 at 11:14
  • you should be able to find tons of blog posts etc regarding iSCSI and Hyper-V, since it hasn't changed much since 2008R2. – Trondh Oct 07 '13 at 12:15