Showing posts with label Cisco UCS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cisco UCS. Show all posts

Thursday, January 26, 2012

How-To: Enable Hyper-V 3.0 Replica (Part 1)

Challenges of Replication in those days
In previous day, replication is complex to configure and setup and often requires expensive proprietaty hardware or software. Due to this,not many of us could afford replication of VMs for disaster recovery copy. Well what about to change the way we design our DR center in the next few months is that Microsoft's Hyper-V 3.0 is to bundle with Hyper-V Replica.

Hyper-V Replica
Hyper-V Replica is asynchronous, application consistent, virtual machine replication built-in to Windows Server 8. With Hyper-V Replica, you can replicate a virtual machine from one location to another with Hyper-V and a network connection. Hyper-V Replica works with any server vendor, any network vendor and any storage vendor. In addition, we will provide unlimited replication in the box. With Hyper-V Replica, we could now design our disaster recovery site in a more cost effective way.

Setup
Figure 1: My test environment

This setup require:-
2. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

*Note: The Hyper-V Replica of Hyper-V 3.0 which bundle in Microsoft Server 8 Developer Preview and its feature are subject to changes when Windows Server 8 RTM released.

Enabling Hyper-V Replica
If you have not have your test server install with Windows Server 8 DP, you may follow my blog How To: Windows Server 8 Boot from VHD to install Windows Server 8 DP on VHD and How-To: Install Hyper-V Role on Windows Server 8 to install Hyper-V role on Windows Server 8 DP.


1. Click Start and launch Hyper-V Manager
2. Select the VM that you want to enable replication, right-lick and select Enable Replication.
Figure 2: Select Enable Replication...
3. Specify Replica Server with FQDN of the target Hyper-V server where you want to move the VM. Click Verify Configuration
Figure 2: Enable Replication of Hyper-V server
4. If this is the first time replication is enable for the server, click Configure server.
Figure 3: Enable replication for first time
5. Select Replication Configuration on the left pane of Hyper-V Settings page. Check Enable this computer as replica server, check Use Integrated Windows Authentication (HTTP) and make sure it use port 80, check Allow replication from specified servers and select the source Hyper-V server and storage location.

Figure 4: Replication Configuration on target Hyper-V Server
6. Select Virtual Machine Move Configuration on left pane. Check Enable this computer to receive Virtual Machine Migrations. Click Apply.
Figure 5: Virtual Machine Move Configuration
7. Click Next until Summary. Click Finish. Upon Finish is clicked, the initial replication will kick start.
Figure 6: Finish enabling Hyper-V Replica
I am currently working on capturing data and video when the initial replication take place and I will post them as How-To: Enable Hyper-V 3.0 Replica (Part 2).

Update 29 January 2012 :-
How-To: Enable Hyper-V 3.0 Replica (Part 2) is available.




Wednesday, January 25, 2012

How-To: NIC Teaming with Windows Server 8 Developer Preview

NIC teaming are now bundle with Microsoft Windows Server 8. With this exciting bundle, IT engineer will no longer suffer in configuring teaming software which proprietary to hardware vendors most occasions. AND this also means the NIC teaming of Windows Server 8 is applicable to NIC of diferrent manufacturers.

Jut got a little time to test out how does this work. Thanks to Noel i got my chance to get my hands on the a pair of CISCO UCS C series, and these server are as shown below
Figure 1: CISCO UCS C-Series Rackmount
My setup was having 2 x NIC of the server connects to my home router, a very common Belkin ADSL router. And here goes the configuration steps :-

1. Click Start and select Server Manager.
2. Click Disable at the NIC Teaming.
Figure 2: NIC Teaming at Server Manager pane
3. Click OK at Manager Servers window.
Figure 3: Managed Servers
 4. Select HV2 (or the server you are about to configure) and notice that there are 2 x NIC present.
Figure 4: NIC Teaming window
 5. The diagram below shows my NICs speed. 100Mbps... =(
Figure 5: NIC Speed
 6. Click Tasks and select New Team.
Figure 6: Teams pane
 7. Type in prefer Team Name and Team Interface Name. Select the NICs you want to team.
Figure 7: Add Team
 8. Select Advanced on the left pane and select Switch Independent for Teaming Mode and Address Hash for Load Distribution Mode. Click Apply.
Figure 8: Add Team (advanced)
 9. New teamed NIC created.
Figure 9: NIC Teaming
 10. Check the created NIC.