Step-By-Step Guide: Configuring Hyper-V and Failover Clustering for Windows Server 2008 R2 on the HP ProLiant DL980, rev 1

• Storage: You must use shared storage that is compatible with Windows Server 2008 R2.

A feature of failover clusters called Cluster Shared Volumes is specifically designed to enhance the

availability and manageability of virtual machines. Cluster Shared Volumes are volumes in a failover

cluster that multiple nodes can read from and write to at the same time. This feature enables multiple

nodes to concurrently access a single shared volume. The Cluster Shared Volumes feature is only

supported for use with Hyper-V and other technologies specified by Microsoft.

On a failover cluster that uses Cluster Shared Volumes, multiple clustered virtual machines that are

distributed across multiple cluster nodes can all access their Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) files at the

same time, even if the VHD files are on a single disk (LUN) in the storage. This means that the clustered

virtual machines can fail over independently of one another, even if they use only a single LUN. When

Cluster Shared Volumes is not enabled, a single disk (LUN) can only be accessed by a single node at a

time. This means that clustered virtual machines can only fail over independently if each virtual machine

has its own LUN, which makes the management of LUNs and clustered virtual machines more difficult.

For a two-node failover cluster, the storage should contain at least two separate volumes (LUNs),

configured at the hardware level. Do not expose the clustered volumes to servers that are not in the

cluster. One volume will function as the witness disk (described below). One volume will contain the

files that are being shared between the cluster nodes. This volume serves as the shared storage on

which you will create the virtual machine and the virtual hard disk. To complete the steps as described

in this document, you only need to expose one volume.

A witness disk is a disk in the cluster storage that is designated to hold a copy of the cluster

configuration database. A failover cluster has a disk witness only if this is specified as part of the

quorum configuration. For this two-node cluster, the quorum configuration will be Node and Disk

Majority, the default for a cluster with an even number of nodes. Node and Disk Majority means

that the nodes and the witness disk each contains copies of the cluster configuration, and the cluster has

quorum as long as a majority (two out of three) of these copies are available.

Note

For more details on understanding quorum in a failover cluster, see:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731739.aspx.

Storage requirements include the following:

o For the partition style of the disk, you can use either master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition

table (GPT).

o To use the native disk support included in failover clustering, use basic disks, not dynamic disks.

o We recommend that you format the partitions with NTFS (for the witness disk, the partition must

be NTFS). If you have a disk witness or use Cluster Shared Volumes, the partition for each of

those must be NTFS.

For Cluster Shared Volumes, there are no special requirements other than the requirement for

NTFS.

Deploying Storage Area Networks with Failover Clusters

When deploying a storage area network (SAN) with a Failover cluster, follow the guidelines below.

• Confirm compatibility of the storage: Open Failover Cluster Manager and run Cluster

Validation Wizard.

• Isolate storage devices, one cluster per device: Servers from different clusters must not be able

to access the same storage device. In most cases, a LUN that is used for one set of cluster servers

should be isolated from all other servers through LUN masking or zoning.