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Can someone please shed some light on this for me?

I gather that it is possible to use Hyper-V live migration without the need for a Cluster Shared Volume. Given the following:

  • Live migration can only migrate one machine at a time (Server 2008 R2, I gather that Server 2012 will be able to migrate multiple machines).

  • Since a Cluster Shared Volume isn't being used, ownership of the LUN holding the VM's storage will need to be transferred to the new node.

Therefore, I am correct in assuming that Live Migration without a CSV can only work if each VM has its own LUN?

Chris McKeown
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Pre 2012 - yes. Post 2012 - no, it copies the files in the background. Works like a charm.

TomTom
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  • Thanks for your answer. Could you expand on that? Let's assume that there are two VMs that live on a single LUN. How is it possible to migrate just one of those machines without the other? Or do you mean that it migrates all the machines on the LUN at the same time? – Chris McKeown Jun 24 '12 at 22:52
  • I mean that you do not even need LUN. 2012 Hyper-V supports a background copy of the whole storage structure between the hosts. You can move a VM from A to B while A and B have both LOCAL discs. it pretty much does everything you can come up with regarding migrations. – TomTom Jun 25 '12 at 04:42
  • My question isn't regarding server 2012. On the background copy point, I'm not sure I'd ever consider using it though - imagine the additional network traffic and delay incurred by moving a few hundred gigs over a network to migrate a machine! – Chris McKeown Jun 25 '12 at 07:33
  • Well, it has advantages, too. For example you can move VM's easily when you do NOT have shared storage - I have quite some machines that are not that important that they are redundant, but when reorganizing VM's I can just move them around. – TomTom Jun 25 '12 at 08:16
  • Sure, makes sense. Going back to my original question, in the case of a 2008 cluster not using a CSV, am I correct in my assumption that each machine will need a separate LUN to allow Live Migration? – Chris McKeown Jun 25 '12 at 09:15
  • Yes. Point being that 2008 can not handle failover of storage areas outside of a CSV. Sucks, but life is as it is. I would suggest looking at 2012 - we use it in production already, Hyper-V is dead stable. – TomTom Jun 25 '12 at 12:22