Showing posts with label Hyper-V Replica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hyper-V Replica. Show all posts

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Hyper-V Replica of Windows Server 8 Beta

I have blogged about Hyper-V replica a while ago when Windows Server 8 release as Developer Preview. And here comes the Windows Server 8 Beta released not long ago, Hyper-V Replica is everywhere on the net most exciting part of it, more and more detailed technical documentation make available by Microsoft to the public particular to this piece of Hyper-V components.
My first look is on the Windows Server 8 Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster and my first expression was…………<speechless>………..and WOW !!!! IMPRESSIVE!

Windows Server "8" Beta Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster

"Hyper-V Replica is an asynchronous virtual machine replication technology that is included in Windows Server "8" Beta. It is designed for business continuity and disaster recovery. It works with any server, network, or storage vendor. It does not require any shared storage. It enables you to replicate individual or multiple virtual machines. Hyper-V Replica is tightly integrated with Hyper-V and Failover Clustering. You can replicate virtual machines from one computer running Hyper-V at a primary site (the primary server) to another computer running Hyper-V at a Replica site (the Replica server). The Replica server accepts incoming replication traffic from one or more primary servers." - Windows Server "8" Beta Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster

Figure 1: Windows Server "8" Beta Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster

Technical Write Up
A document on Understand and Troubleshoot Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server "8" Beta is available for you if you are looking for the detailed bits of Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server 8. I personally find that this document is very useful for someone like me who involves in proposing Hyper-V design.

Hyper-V Replica with Powershell
For some of you would like to deploy Hyper-V with Server Core installation, you may be looking into managing Hyper-V Replica using Powershell. The below 2 blogs you may be interested in :

Technical Diagram of Hyper-V Replica



My previous testing and blog of Hyper-V Replica
You may refer to :-
How-To: Enable Hyper-V 3.0 Replica (Part 1)

More testing on the way when I secured hardware for testing :-)

Sunday, January 29, 2012

How-To: Enable Hyper-V 3.0 Replica (Part 2)

As promise in my previous blog How-To: Enable Hyper-V 3.0 Replica (Part 1), I have capture a full video of my testing on Hyper-V 3.0 Replica. Below are the videos and it is best view at 720p resolution:-

Hyper-V 3.0 Replica Highlights During Testing
As usual, i did quite number of things that may be does not make sense with the purpose to see how is the Hyper-V manager handle this. Below are some of the things that I have tried to perform during the testing.

Maximum number of recovery point
Notice that the Store additional recovery points have a maximum value of 15.

Figure 1: Maximum value of Store additional recovery point is 15

Schedule Initial Replication
You can only schedule the Initial Replication not later than 7 days.
Figure 2: Schedule of Initial Replication must be within 7 days


Power up the VM during replication
When you try to power up the VM during the Replication in progress, This is the error you will get.
Figure 3: Error when power up VM during replication
Network Utilization During Initial Replication
The network utilization at 95% of 100Mbps during Initial Replication. Looking forward to test again when i got 1Gbps switch.
Figure 4: Network utilization
Report of Replication Health
Report is available to tell you the statistics and status of VM replication.
Figure 5: Replication Health Report
Failover test
You can use failover test to test the functionality of the replicated VM. The Test Failover feature will create a test VM of the replicated VM with just a click away.
Figure 6: Test Failover

Plan Failover must turn off production VM
Your planed failover will not work if the production VM is still running.
Figure 7: Planned Failover failed
Figure 8: Planned Failover started
Reverse Failover
Reverse Failover is necessary when the production Hyper-V host is running and you want your VM return to that host.
Figure 9: Reverse Replication for VM that was failover to DR Hyper-V host



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.