Simple Hyper-V Failover cluster

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Ceremonial Geek

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Aug 4, 2021
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I'm building a server setup for 5 simple VMs with a limited budget. I want to build two identical servers and have all the VM's run on 1 and if host 1 goes down spool up on 2. That is it.

It's going to be 2x Supermico SuperServer 7049P-TRT with dual 10GbE ports running Windows Server 2019 Standard connected to the same Mikrotik CRS312-4C+8XG-RM switch.

The question is, do I put the storage on each server and just replicate it or get a central NAS. Now the issue is, semi-redundant NAS units are expensive compared to adding 6x 12TB drives in a raid 5 plus 2x 1.92TB SSDs to a LSI 9361-8i w/ the Cache Vault on each server. For example the Synology SA3200D with the dual 10G adapter would be around $8,000 plus drives would be $11,400. Storage on each server would be $3850 each (including the raid card).

Can Hyper-V even handle storage on each server without some crazy failure prone setup? I know how to do a san-based failover for a datacenter but that costs mucho $. This project, I don't have that kind of budget. Do I need to use StarWind or DataCore?
 

cesmith9999

Well-Known Member
Mar 26, 2013
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I am not certain that you can do Storage Spaces Direct with Standard Edition.


only mentions storage spaces direct is available on Datacenter and preview builds





Chris
 

markarr

Active Member
Oct 31, 2013
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If you want a automated failover you will need some sort of shared storage, starwind can do this for you. If you can live with manual and a 5 min RPO then you could just use native Hyper-V replication and no shared storage just storage local to the servers, this would be the KISS option.
 

Ceremonial Geek

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Aug 4, 2021
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I'm thinking about getting a Synology RS1221RP+ with the dual 10G adapter, extra ram and 2 ssds for caching with 6 spinning rust drives. Should be fast enough to have the 10G quorum and the VM data drive on the same NAS. It isn't dual controller but it is dual PSU. Looks like I can get it for $5520 with 14TB drives, 960GB SSDs, 10G card, 16GB of RAM and the sliding rail kit.
 

Marjan

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Nov 6, 2016
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Either ise Starwind or Windows Datacenter edition and S2D.
There is Hyper-V replica, just replicates VMs from one host to another but there is no automatic failover, it must be done manually.
 

DavidRa

Infrastructure Architect
Aug 3, 2015
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There is Hyper-V replica, just replicates VMs from one host to another but there is no automatic failover, it must be done manually.
Not quite - hook it up to Azure Site Recovery and for (IIRC) $10 a month Azure will do the failover management for you. It's been a long time since I looked at it but it could be an option.

The better option is to have something onsite. Ping the primary and if it's failed for 5m start on secondary. And write yourself some shutdown and startup scripts that manage the failover and failback.
 
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Marjan

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Nov 6, 2016
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Not quite - hook it up to Azure Site Recovery and for (IIRC) $10 a month Azure will do the failover management for you. It's been a long time since I looked at it but it could be an option.

The better option is to have something onsite. Ping the primary and if it's failed for 5m start on secondary. And write yourself some shutdown and startup scripts that manage the failover and failback.
Hm, Azure site recovery, didn't even crossed my mind.

And I agree for scripting. It should be fairly easy to do this.