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I have been challenged to configure and setup a HA Hyper-v Cluster that will never go down.

I have mainly only used VMWare for clustering and HA.

My question how can i run a Hyper-V cluster like a VMWare cluster?

In VMWare i can install and run the vCSA to configure the shared networking, datastores, HA, DRS, vmotion, Affinity, resource pools, etc.

Does hyper-v come with something similar, I have tried to use SCVMM 2016 twice and for some reason the errors and non stop and i can't get it to work.

If that is the best or only option let me know and I will figure it out, but if there is something better( I know best or better maybe an opinion )

I am not looking for open source or cheap.

(Yes i know why not buy the VMWare licences? I have to rule out hyper-V first)

Second part to the question, Does Hyper-V offer the same features to that of VMWare?

The main ones I would be looking for:

Distributed Switches

HA

DRS

Vmotion - Technology Migration

Host Affinity

Anthony Fornito
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    "I have tried to use SCVMM 2016 twice and for some reason the errors and non stop and i can't get it to work." <--- that is not a very good reason to abandon a project. Engage MS support. They will help you through this until you come to a resolution. – EEAA May 18 '17 at 19:50
  • @EEAA I would not abandon a project if something is not working, would not have the job I have now if that were the case. My question is; that SCVMM the only option? Is there something better, my googlefu is fairly decent however I do not know too many people that run a Hyper-V HA environment so I asking if I am headed in the right direction, why fight errors for a whole day if I cannot accomplish what I want in the end. – Anthony Fornito May 18 '17 at 20:52
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    Yes, SCVMM is the equivalent of vCenter Server. Is there something better? Not from Microsoft, but just like VMware, there are a number of vendors that sell virtualization management tools. How much time you want to spend researching and evaluating those tools is up to you. – joeqwerty May 18 '17 at 21:09
  • Consider of course that VMware have the advantage of by being very early to market they own the patents to a number of key technologies that they don't let others copy - this has obviously helped them keep a technical lead in the marketplace. – Chopper3 May 23 '17 at 08:36

2 Answers2

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To create true HA you need shared storage, Windows 2016 has S2D feature, but it's available in Datacenter license. In Hyper-V it's easier to create an HA because you no need any additional licenses (vCenter) and it's available right from the box. All S2D features can be used starting from four nodes, if you're using fewer nodes, here is the nice topic describing it https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1445491-s2d-vs-starwind-virtual-san BTW, here is the step by step guide on how to deploy a Hyper-V cluster. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj863389(v=ws.11).aspx

Stuka
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Hyper-V vs VMware

SCOM (System Center Operation Manager)

SCO (System Center Orchestrator)

SCVMM (System Center Virtual Machine Manager)

Surprisingly Hyper-V can run like VMware better in some ways, there is a major gotcha that Microsoft throws in there which I will put at the end. I am not going to go into too much detail about networking as that is a different topic.

Things that were needed (no particular order)

Two shared storage appliances, Using the builtin Hyper-V replication you can have Fault Tolerance in that the vhdx files are kept in sync and through SCO and SCVMM you can configure if a VM goes down the other one will be spun up to take its place.

Load Balancer, using host affinity also setup in the SCVMM you can select which host a VM will be on and also which host a VM should never be on.

The pros:

Single pane of glass not only do you get the VMware functionally but you also get some very useful Remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, to keep system updated, antivirus, etc.

Honestly that is about it.

Cons:

Extremely hard to setup. You need to have 3 different servers for each of the SC products, I was using the Eval Copies but as far as i know in production each product must be on physical boxes (3), and if one goes down you will lose the functionality of the that server so to ensure your environment never goes down you have 2 servers (6) that are clustered and in sync.

The Eval copies were not easy to setup there is very little documentation online however the Microsoft Virtual Academy has some really great walk through videos that if you manage to get all the systems setup and to the most recent build numbers (Very important!!!) walk you through how to setup and configure everything. Also make sure your SCVMM server name does not contain SCVMM.

The price, here is where they get you, $3,607 PER CORE, 16 core minimum Equaling $57,712, now that does get you everything. Compared to VMWare $31,908 (2 Proc) for 3 hosts. which also gets you everything, (vSphere with Operations Management Enterprise Plus) Basically you would need to have 5.5 VMWare hosts before you would see any cost savings, depending on your environment how many you need.

Anthony Fornito
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