http://clusteringformeremortals.com/2011/05/15/sql-server-denali-hadron-multisite-cross-subnet-failover-video-demonstration/

SQL Server 2012 and cross subnet failover capabilities will open up a whole new world of possibilities for people looking for disaster recovery options for SQL 2012.

Please check out these two exciting virtualization career training opportunities: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=270.

Virtualization Career Training

On Tuesday, October 4^th Technical Evangelists Symon Perriman and Rick Claus are hosting an online conference on Virtualization Career Training with Microsoft Learning.  This half day virtual event (8am – 11am PST) will offer a Level
100
to 200 introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about Microsoft Virtualization and how it can help their career.  It is free and public so sign up for this warm-up for the Jump Start event on October 6^th.

        Module 1 – Technology: Learn about Microsoft’s virtualization technologies, how they work, and the future roadmap to the Cloud!

        Module 2 – Career: Understand the importance of virtualization and Private Cloud, and how it can make or break an IT Professional’s career!

        Module 3 – Certification: Get prepared for your next steps towards a virtualization career by understanding and preparing for the Microsoft 70-659 Technical Specialist exam, Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization.

Learn More: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=270

Register: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=288

Instructor Bios:  http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=287

Virtualization Exam 70-659 Training

On Thursday October 6^th Technical Evangelist Symon Perriman and Technical Instructor Philip Helsel will host an online 8-hour deep dive training event for the Microsoft 70-659 Technical Specialist exam, Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Virtualization.  This virtual event runs from 8am to 5pm PST and will include presentations, demos and live Q&A with the attendees.   It costs $99 to attend, but includes a free exam voucher worth $150!  It is public so sign up for some great training to help improve your career here: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=272.  Register early to make the most of a weekly virtualization coaching newsletter!

        Module 1 – Installing and Configuring Host and Parent Settings

        Module 2 – Configuring Child Settings

        Module 3 – Managing and Monitoring Virtual Environments

        Module 4 – Ensuring High Availability and Recoverability

        Module 5 – Performing Migration

        Module 6 – Configuring Remote Desktop (RD) Role Services Infrastructure

Technologies that we will cover include: Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), System Center Operations Manager (OpsMgr), System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM), Windows Server Backup, Failover Clustering, Remote Desktop Services, Active Directory, Microsoft Assessment & Planning Toolkit (MAP), Virtual Machine Servicing Tool (VMST), Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) & more!
Learn More: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=274

Register: http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=272

Exam Information: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exam.aspx?ID=70-659

Thanks!
Symon Perriman
Technical Evangelist
Private Cloud Technologies
Microsoft

See videos on TechNet

Follow announcements @SymonPerriman

I added the hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = “FALSE” to the config file and I changed the CPU settings to use Intel VT –x/EPT as shown below.

But this is what I get when I try to enable the Hyper-V role.

Maybe it is time to invest in a new laptop?

Part of this webinar includes some VERY interesting benchmark information…you won’t want to miss it!

http://digitalwpc.com/Videos/AllVideos/Permalink/3cb3788c-5c47-4b9e-987c-0dec4194058b/#fbid=slfi0dmNMqP

It looks like a very welcome feature that certainly will make Hyper-V even more competitive when comparing the feature set vs. price between vSphere and Hyper-V, especially with the new pricing announced by VMware.

I’ll be very curious to see if this integrates with Windows Server Failover Clustering to allow you create shared nothing clusters as you can today with 3^rd party replication software like SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition as I demonstrated in an earlier blog post.

http://clusteringformeremortals.com/2009/09/17/hyper-v-live-migration-across-data-centers/

The following is a link to a 5 minute video that demonstrates a 3-node cluster Denali cluster with two nodes in the primary datacenter and one node in the DR site in a separate subnet.

http://screencast.com/t/ni1zqMOIv

I will be demonstrating this solution at Tech-Ed 2011 in Atlanta this week. Stop by the SIOS Technology booth and have a look for yourself at the SQL Server Denali multisite cluster demonstration using SteelEye DataKeeper.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/Hh133452

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2494036

Consider the following…

I have a two node cluster in a local site high availability and I wish to extend it to a 3^rd location and add a single node for disaster recovery. Sound like a great plan as a multisite cluster is just about the most robust DR plan you can implement. However, you will not be able to take advantage of one of the best features of a multisite cluster – automatic recovery in the event of a site loss. If you were to lose your primary site the DR site only contains one cluster node (see Figure 1). This is just one vote out of three in the cluster so a majority cannot be obtained and Node3 will not come online automatically. The only way to make Node3 come online is to force the quorum online, which kind of defeats the purpose of multisite cluster by requiring human intervention for a failover to happen.

Figure 1 – In a typical 3 node multisite cluster if you lose the primary site the DR site cannot obtain majority so failover never occurs.

The only “safe” way to have automatic failover in a multisite cluster is to have an equal number of nodes in each site and to have a file share witness in a 3^rd location with connectivity back to both the primary site and the DR site. This concept is a little difficult to grasp at first, so let me attempt to explain through illustrations.

Figure 2- With an even number of nodes in both locations and the file share witness in the primary site a loss of the primary site would not result in a failover as the Alternate Site would only have 2 out of 5 votes, not a majority.

Figure 3 – If the file share witness was moved to the Alternate Site a failure of the WAN would cause a false failover as the Alternate Site would form a majority and come online.

Figure 4 – with the file share witness in a 3rd location failover will occur if the Primary Site is lost and false failovers are avoided in the case of connectivity failure between the Primary and Alternate Site.

As you can see, figure 4 represents the only reasonable configuration which supports automatic failover. However, this assumes that there are an equal number of nodes in each location. If you are stuck with the original 3-node configuration you are stuck as adding a file share witness does not help as you can never achieve a majority in the alternate site…until today! Microsoft release a patch that basically allows you to specify whether or not a node gets to vote or not. So what this means is you can build a 3-node cluster as illustrated in Figure 1, yet take advantage a file share witness in a 3^rd location as illustrated in Figure 4. By simply telling one of the nodes in the Primary Site to note vote in the cluster you will allow the Alternate Site to form a majority with the file share witness and come online. Assuming connectivity to your 3^rd location and Alternate Site is relatively reliable there really is no downside to the configuration shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 – by disabling the vote on Node2 you can deploy a 3-node multisite cluster with a file share witness and safely support automatic failover to the DR site. The same concept can be applied to any cluster with an odd number of nodes.

While this is a great solution, you still need that 3^rd location for the file share witness. If you don’t have that 3^rd location you will just have to settle for a manual switchover and keep the file share witness in the primary site if you have an even number of nodes.

The PreventQuorum switch is also included as part of this hotfix which will also be of interest to people deploying multisite clusters. Well explore that option in a future article.

Get the hot fix here…

A hotfix is available to let you configure a cluster node that does not have quorum votes in Windows Server 2008 and in Windows Server 2008 R2

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2494036

The following are the high level steps required to turn an existing 2-node File Server cluster into a 3-node multisite cluster using SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition. The same steps can be applied to most cluster resource types including Hyper-V, DHCP, Generic Service, etc. However, if you are working with a SQL Server cluster the steps will be slightly different as adding a node to the cluster is done through the SQL installation process and not the Failover Cluster Manager.

These instructions assume you have at least base level knowledge of Windows Server Failover Clustering and some familiarity with SteelEye DataKeeper Cluster Edition. Also, these instructions do not address any changes which may be required to support cross subnet failover utilizing the new “OR” functionality introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2. For further information on deploying multisite clusters refer to the following resources:

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947048/en-us
• http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/C/2/8C21BAFE-3432-48D1-962A-F7A9DD54A2AC/Multi-Site%20Clustering%20with%20Windows%20Server%202008%20Enterprise.pptx
• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/failover-clustering-multisite.aspx

Step 1 – Start with a traditional shared storage cluster

Step 2 – Remove any Physical Disk resources from the clustered service

Step 3 – Delete the Cluster Disk from Available Storage

Step 4 – Bring the shared volume Online on all cluster nodes

Step 5 – Verify that the volumes brought online all have the same drive letter across cluster nodes. At this time Disk Management may not display the drive letters but you should be able to verify the drive letters through Windows Explorer.

Step 6 – Change your Quorum type to node majority (if you will have an odd number of nodes) or Node and File Share Majority (if you have an even number of nodes).

Step 7 – Delete the volume resource that is in Available Storage

Step 8 – Create your mirror

Step 9 – Add the remote Node to the cluster*

* IMPORTANT NOTE
If you are using Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 , you must not do this step through the Failover Cluster Manager GUI. Changes were made in SP1 to support symmetric storage however these changes actually make deploying multisite clusters more complicated in some circumstances. If you are using SP1 and want to add a node to a multisite cluster that is using a 3^rd party storage class resource like DataKeeper, the only way to add a node without causing the cluster disks resources to be added back into the cluster (which really causes a mess to clean up) is to use PowerShell to add the node as described here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee461047.aspx

Step 10 – Add the DataKeeper Volume Resource

Step 11 – Change the DataKeeper Volume Parameters to associate it with the replicated volume

Step 12 – Redefine the cluster dependencies

Step 13 – Test your new multisite cluster

Keep in mind that only a shared source or the current target of a mirror can come online; you cannot bring a shared target online if it is not the current target of the mirror. In an unexpected failure Windows will follow the preferred owners list until it finds a node that is available to come online. In a manual Online if you try to bring a node Online that is not a shared source or a current target the Online will fail and the current node will remain online. Check the DataKeeper GUI to verify which node is currently the target of the mirror.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2011/04/04/microsoft-iscsi-software-target-3-3-for-windows-server-2008-r2-available-for-public-download.aspx

This all starts to get interesting once you start considering the possibility of building shared nothing iSCSI Target clusters with DataKeeper Cluster Edition. Build 2-nodes locally for HA and then place a 3^rd one in a remote data center for disaster recovery. Now that is a pretty sweet HA/DR solution without having to break the bank!