Hyper-V replica

[localzuk]

I'm reading about 2012 server at the moment, as I have 2 HP DL380 Gen8 servers with dual Intel E5-2960 processors and 100GB RAM each, along with 10GbE connectivity, and 8x 100GB Enterprise SSDs, so I am looking for the best way to use them (I didn't buy them but I have them now).

 

My current thought is to use 2012 server with the Hyper-V replica capability to use them as a virtualisation platform, without needing to spend on a SAN.

 

Would this work ok? Or am I misunderstanding what the feature will do?

[sparkeh]

In my (admittedly limited) reading on this I am not sure that this is the intended use for this?

It appears to be more for DR than providing a virtualisation platform?

Have a read of this: Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Replica … In Detail

Edited September 7, 2012 by sparkeh

[localzuk]

In my (admittedly limited) reading on this I am not sure that this is the intended use for this?

Have a read of this: Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Replica … In Detail

 

Reading that at this very moment. From my reading so far, it appears it is what I'm talking about. Namely, you'd set up the 2 servers as clusters (with only 1 server in each), set up a Hyper-V replica broker on both, and set it up to talk with each other, then on VMs you want to replicate, you set up their specific settings. So then the system copies the VM over to the other, and keeps it up to date with info every 5 days (like an SQL transaction log).

 

That way, if the 'main' server goes down, you can tell the replicated server to turn on and operate. It wouldn't be automatic or involve quick migration of VMs, but those are features that are unneeded from what I can see.

 

We'd not be using it for 'maintenance' failover (ie. moving things around due to resource needs etc...), just DR if one of the 2 servers died.

 

Hmm... That article seems to say it'd do it but then the guy says not. In particular, the last question would cover my desired use.

Edited September 7, 2012 by localzuk