Windows 2008 r2 and Cluster Shared Volume

[gioppino]

Hi, anyone has tested this new feature in a Hyper-V R2 cluster with StarWind Server ?

Any raccomandations ?

Thanks, Sandro

[Robert (staff)]

Hello Sandro,

We have not yet tested StarWind Server with Hyper-V on R2 yet. This is something that we are going to do in the nearest future and share the results with the community.

Perhaps, someone has already done it in the community?

Thanks,
Rob

[Aitor_Ibarra]

I can confirm that Starwind works with CSV. As far as I know, there are no special requirements for CSV storage beyond the normal cluster requirements (e.g. iSCSI must support persistent reservations, which Starwind does.)

I've tested a cluster of Windows 2008 R2 (Release Candidate) Hyper-V nodes using Starwind 4.0 for storage, running on top of Windows 2008. I can live migrate VMs from node to node etc. It works beautifully. Now instead of one LUN per VM/VHD, you really only need to do one LUN per RAID volume.

There is a big hurdle however, before you can run this is in production. Backup. As far as I know, there's no way to do a reliable backup of a running VM when its VHDs are stored in a CSV. To do so apparently needs special support for new functions in VSS, and no backup product (inlcuding the free WIndows Server Backup and Microsoft DPM 2007 SP1) currently supports this. There's no ETA for DPM v3, which will have support, but hopefully there will at least be a beta available when 2008 R2 RTM's in October. (That's my hope, it's not based on any statement from Microsoft!).

[Robert (staff)]

Windows 2008 R2, afaih, is going to be released in a week or so. Once it is released, we will run the necessary tests and provide solutions for the bottlenecks and hard points.

Take a look at veeam.com for backing up VMware virtual machines.

Thanks

[rshubert]

Just to add my 2 cents to this thread...

I built a Hyper-V Server Cluster in my lab and StarWind worked as expected. My build:

2x Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 RTM nodes
1x Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM AD DC | Admin tools (cluster and Hyper-V) | StarWind Free
1x Windows 7 RTM 32-bit for Hyper-V admin and RDC

Everything went together and fully validated. So far I only have it working. I'll try to do some stress testing in the coming days/weeks. Live migration seemed to function as advertised.

Ultimately I believe I'll be installing StarWind Server on my Windows 2003 R2 file server, at least until I install a better SAN, but I don't see this as a problem.

RS

[Robert (staff)]

Actually we have gathered a plenty of videos recorded by Microsoft MVPs including buidling a Hyper-V Clusters, SQL, etc.
Worth watching.
http://www.starwindsoftware.com/video

Thanks.