Windows Server 2008R2 Virtual Host upgrade

[CAWJames]

Hi all,

 

We have been running 2 Dell R710's as standalone virtual hosts for a few years now with a PS6100 with 14TB capacity in the back.

 

I now want to upgrade them to 2012R2 and cluster them together.

 

Currently they only have 1 proc and 40GB each and are full with their own VM's.

 

I have now ordered 27 8GB sticks( ) to take each server to 144GB and a processor for each.

 

So that takes care of hardware, enough to hold all the VM's on 1 node, so I can service the host.

 

I plan to in-place upgrade each server, so down all the VM's, then standard disk setup to 2012R2, and then install the integrations on each VM,I believe this is a supported way of doing it.

 

That will give me 2 standalone 2012R2 hyper-v hosts.

 

So what is the best way to cluster with production VM's? We do use VMM 2012R2, is that the best way? Is it as easy as shutting all VM's down and running the wizard, or should I be super protective of the VM's? I will have SAN replicas/backups of the VM volumes, but do I need to make a massive volume and select shared and then call it a CSV and move all the VM's into that? I am not sure if CSV is a necessity or I can still use my volumes?

 

I do want CSV to make growing VM's easier, as its an a*** in a fixed size volume! There are also a couple of VM's in local storage(mainly as they are test servers and don't warrant me making a volume.

 

Any insights would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

James

[CAWJames]

Ok, after some exhaustive searching it seems that I can cluster the 2 as is via SCVMM 2012R2, and then make each VM highly available as and when, by migrating them to the CSV and then tagging them as such in the MMC console. And by all account I should be able to do this live, with 2012R2. Happy days!

 

I have also found that 12 1Gbe ports per server is not enough for our needs, so each host will have 16 1Gbe ports!! What is the world coming to, dual processor, 144MB of RAM and 16Gbe ethernet!!

 

Thanks

 

James