As a student I've not had much experience with the practice of setting up and managing networks. There's a question I've had for a while now, that my teacher wasn't able to explain to my satisfaction :
I used to be under the impression that server hardware had to have 99.99% uptime. I remember linux admins showing off that they had a box running for 3+ years. Imagine my surprise when I first found out that Windows Update for Windows Server 2008 offered a critical update to me every 2-3 weeks, and that most updates required a reboot.
When a VM asks for a reboot, usually it's no big deal as a second, redundant, VM can take over traffic until the first VM is back online. What I'm wondering though, is what to do with the Hyper-V server, the one that is hosting all those VM's?
My teacher told me that you can either reboot the server during off hours, which is reasonable for a small company, or not update that server at all. I can't even begin to imagine how unsecure a server like that must be after not having been updated for years, so I don't consider that as a valid option at all.
Isn't there a way to copy VM's to another physical Hyper-V server, and somehow have that VM not go offline to the end user?
I appreciate any advice and tips you guys can give me.