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I'm more xen & vmware experienced, that's why I do not have any deep knowledge of Hyper-V.. Please, help me with these questions:

I would like to have cluster made of 2 nodes (mostly Linux is virtualized).

1) What do you recommend, to have 2 Hyper-V servers and management consoles, or 2 Win2008 with Hyper-V ? What are the benefits of having win2008 with this feature?
2) How it is called that management console ? Could you please tell me the approximate pricing ?
3) Does the free edition of hyper-v server support some kind of high availability ? (one physical host goes down, and all running VMs are transfered on another host)

Thank you.

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  1. Windows Hyper-V server is essentially just a Server Core installation (no GUI) with just the Hyper-V role. Server 2008 with Hyper-V is a a full version of Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role available. So if you want to use your Hyper-V host to do other things as well as host VM's (not really a good plan) then you will want the full version of Server 2008.
  2. The management console is installed on a client machine, in the case of a server core installation, on a full instllation you could install it on the Hyper-V server its self, but I would reccomend having it on a client machine. There is no separate cost for the management console.
  3. The free Hyper-V server does support host clustering and live migration, it does not support application fail over. See here for more information.
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  • Thank you, but what is then XenCenter alternative in Hyper-V environment? I mean, I would welcome some GUI, where I am able to manage the VMs and cluster features, connect to VM console and so on. Is it System Center?
    – John
    Mar 21, 2011 at 12:25
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    Good write-up. Two things: #2. He might be thinking of the SCVMM which is a much more advanced console for Hyper-V and ESX; it's not free, highly recommended for medium & large clusters. The normal Hyper-V & Clustering MMCs can accomplish most of the same though. #3. Hyper-V Server or Windows Server EE & DC support HA, Windows Server SE does not. Hyper-V Server is based on Windows Server Core EE with the other roles & licensing stripped out (plus a few other minor changes...).
    – Chris S
    Mar 21, 2011 at 12:34
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    @memjo as Chris mentioned, they Hyper-V console is a free MMC snap in that is available from a Windows client (when installed), this is free and will allow you to manage your VM's. If you want the more advanced control you get with SCVMM then you will need ot pay for this.
    – Sam Cogan
    Mar 21, 2011 at 12:39
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@Chris-S Thanks for the corrections!:

  1. To support Microsoft Failover Clustering Services for Live Migration you need either free Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 or full Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise/Datacenter editions.
  2. Maybe you mean SCVMM? It's the optional add-on management system that does P2V, automated VM templates, etc. http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/virtual-machine-manager.aspx
  3. You want to do live migration which requires you to setup Windows Clustering. You must have iSCSI, shared SAS, or Fiber Channel SAN to store the VM's and I recommend minimum 4 NIC's in hosts.
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    1. Windows Core can do HA; Windows Server SE can not, you need EE or DC. The free Hyper-V Server can also do HA. 3. You can also use a SAS SAN; MS recommends 4 NICs for network traffic and 2 more for SAN traffic; though I tend to agree with your 4 recommendation for smaller clusters.
    – Chris S
    Mar 21, 2011 at 12:43
  • @Chris-S, thank you for the corrections. I learn something or re-learn something every day here :)
    – Bret Fisher
    Mar 21, 2011 at 14:22

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