We currently run a Hyper-V server on a non-domain W2008 server, and are looking to build a failover solution.
Because all the (6-10) VM guests are linuxes, and our datacenter space is 90% non windows, we have never felt the need for AD domains etc.
My initial plan is a second server (either W2008R2 or W2012 standard), running Hyper-V server.
There is no shared storage / SAN in place.
The VM's are pretty static – portals and web servers, with database located elsewhere, off the VMs, and so we could reasonably easily cope with week-old backups copies regularly from master VM to secondary VM.
Option 1 is the above setup – if VM Server goes bang, spin up the copies on secondary.
Option 2 is implement Failover Cluster, so if VM Server goes down, VM Secondary will just take over
I would really appreciate some advice on the way forwards with this – the more I read the more confused I get.
Best Answer
No, but why do you NEED that?
I mean, can you not handle the high uptime requirement on the VM level? Have 2 sets of vm's (one on each server) and then do the HA part in the software.
Basically, assume a Hyper-V server CAN crash, and handle the failure WITHIN the VM layer, similar like you would do it if that all would not be virtual but every VM would be a physical machine.
Any HA for Hyper-V requires a domain as this is what windows clustering uses. And that still leaves issues (corrupt images). But that is not HA anyway (requires restart) and there still is the app layer level.