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Building Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Failover Cluster High Availability over HP c7000 Blade Server Enclosure | HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric Network Re-configuration and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Failover Cluster Migration Best Practices

Combining Windows Server 2012 with HP c7000 Blade Enclosure for Hyper-V Virtual Machine High Availability and Mobility solution can provide best of server consolidation and virtualization results. Recently I had a chance to plan and document a large Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V HA implementation with hundreds of highly available virtual machines, in this solution documentation customer requested to design the framework which should be used to build Hyper-V cluster nodes HA across two HP c7000 enclosure.

 

This Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Failover Cluster scalability framework includes of the following requirements to be met:

  • Migrating half of the HP Blade Servers to another HP c7000 enclosure for expanding the Hyper-V failover cluster across two enclosure, so in case if one complete enclosure fails then remaining cluster nodes from another enclosure can kick-in and sustain the VM cluster resources.
  • Virtual Connect complete re-configuration, which means removing of all networks and combining all VLANs into trunk-VLANs in-continuation with VLAN tagging on the VM side.
  • Re-zoning the blade servers for storage fabric after moving to the new enclosure.
  • Reconfiguring Hyper-V virtual switches with new NICs on the Hyper-V cluster node after completing the VC changes.
  • Last but not least after the successful migrating of blade server from one enclosure to another, ensuring that all VMs should come online without any loss of data or cluster resource from another cluster.

 

It might look as pretty straightforward migration scenario to you, but it has many ramification to your environment which should be treated carefully before-hand. Now I will share with you the complete planning steps for making things ready before you jump into this activity. All these steps are general guidance to ensure that administrator has all the stuff handy for recovering from any possible disaster.

 

Environment:

Windows Server 2008 R2 \ Server 2012 Hyper-v

 

Resolution:

1-      Take System state backup for the Hyper-v hosts (Full back up if possible will be more caution).

2-      Take complete backup the Virtual machines.

3-      Document all the network configuration for hosts and virtual machines.

4-      Document all storage information and presentation for each cluster node.

5-      Schedule down time according to your hardware

6-      Open a pre-caution service request on the time of your deployment with your environment detail so an engineer in the time zone of your deployment can follow-up with you.

7-      Shutdown all virtual machines for the Hyper-v cluster you will move.

8-      Disable Cluster and Hyper-v services until you verify storage is correctly presented.

9-      Verify storage presentation after moving the cluster nodes machines hardware to the new enclosure before starting the machines.

10-   Start the cluster nodes and verify storage presentation and setup the network configuration.

11-   Enable Cluster and Hyper-v services then Restart cluster nodes and configure the virtual network to the new NICs.

12-   Verify Virtual Machines Virtual Disks and configurations are accessible in the right path.

13-   Start Virtual Machines and test functionality.

 

 

If there are any other element unique to your environment you want to include you should consider them too. Hope this blog post would provide you help you are looking to get your stuff done with care.

 

Cheers!

  

 

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