I initially setup hyper-v on a single server with a FC SAN. I configured it as a failover cluster with just the one server in it, using cluster shared volumes for the VMs, knowing I'd expand later.
I'm now getting ready to add my second host to the cluster.
However, I installed VMM 2012 directly on the first host computer, using an SQL express instance also on the host computer. This is obviously not good from a high availability standpoint. So a few questions about how to proceed are:
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Can I safely remove VMM 2012 from the first host without losing any virtual machines or data? Anything specific I should do to make reinstalling VMM go smoothly? (besides the obvious "have backups, know how to restore them"). Will it cause any VMs to get deleted, restarted, etc?
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Where should I install VMM? The technet docs say ideally have a seperate SQL cluster to store the database on. I don't have the hardware or licenses for that. Just my two virtual machine hosts and the SAN. I'm thinking a virtual machine inside the cluster, with the caveat that if the VMM virtual machine has issues, I'll have to use the failover cluster and hyper-v manager tools to fix it before I can do anything through VMM. Any other issues I should be aware of?
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When I do reinstall VMM, what needs to be done to make it see all the old configuration?
Best Answer
Yes
Most people install SCVMM in a VM running in the same cluster that it's managing. This is generally the same thing people do with vCenter Server in VMware environments.
What configuration? You'll add the Hyper-V cluster to SCVMM and it will pick up the host and cluster configuration from the clustered Hyper-V servers.