In order to build your own Hyper-V lab in Azure, you need two Hyper-V instances. But, hey, why do we need Hyper-V Replica here? This technology allows you to shift a virtual machine from a server on-prem to Microsoft Azure for maxing out your services uptime. With Hyper-V Replica, returning your services back to the normal functioning becomes a matter of only a few seconds… Looks like a must-have for your Hyper-V environment, doesn’t it?

If you work with Azure close enough, you’ve probably have heard of Nested Virtualization. Yes, it is the feature allowing you to run Hyper-V inside an Azure VM. Why does one need that thing? Well, to build a perfect lab for demos, development, testing, whatever… without buying any extra hardware!

The need or perceived need for hard CPU processor affinity stems from a desire to offer the best possible guaranteed performance.  The use cases for this do exist but the problems they try to solve or the needs they try to meet might be better served by a different design or architecture such as dedicated hardware. This is especially true when this requirement is limited to a single or only a few virtual machines needing lots of resources and high performance that are mixed into an environment where maximum density is a requirement. In such cases, the loss of flexibility by the Hyper-V CPU scheduler in regards to selecting where to source the time slices of CPU cycles is detrimental. The high performance requirements of such VMs also means turning of NUMA spanning. Combining processor affinity and high performance with maximum virtual machine density is a complex order to fulfill, no matter what.

A part of a series, the research is dedicated to the capability of free Microsoft Hyper-V Server R2 to assume a file server role and cluster the resulting file server. Our last experiment on this matter showed that it’s possible to create SMB3 File Server on the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server R2 and now we’re about to go further and cluster it. The post shows a detailed instruction on the process and also the resulting setup. It appears to be fully working and usable, so the process may be called a success after all. Though it is absolutely real to do so, it is a violation of Microsoft’s license agreement, so StarWind urges everyone to refrain from repeating the experiment.

The first experiment dedicated to building a file server on free Microsoft Hyper-V Server R2. It is a part of a series of similar practical posts. The post offers a detailed instruction on how to assign file server role to the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server R2. However, this process is a violation of license agreement, so StarWind urges the readers not to repeat it. As to the reason the process is at all possible, the answer is quite simple: SMB3 is a crucial part of the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server R2 and the latter won’t work if the protocol support is cut out. In any case, a fact that you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Violating Microsoft’s user license agreement is some serious business you don’t want to get involved in.

This research is, basically, an answer to some statements about NFS shares and Hyper-V Virtual Machines that StarWind engineers considered false. Hyper-V is a native hypervisor from Microsoft and one of the most popular ones. It is capable of creating virtual machines on x86 and x64 Windows systems. Microsoft suggests that VMs should be stored in the Cluster Shared Volumes, in case live migration and failover are required. Storing them on an NFS share was never present in the design, so StarWind team was a bit skeptical about the idea at the first place. This research contains the full experiment, aimed at proving or disproving the initial statement, complete with a few different checks. The result is quite an expected one, but nevertheless, curiosity is strong in StarWind engineers.

This post is about Microsoft Storage Replica, a new solution introduced by Microsoft in Windows Server 2016. Basically, it enables replication between two servers, clusters or inside a cluster, also being capable of copying data between volumes on the same server. Storage Replica is often utilized for Disaster Recovery, allowing the user to replicate data to a remote site, thus being able to recover from complete physical failure on the main location. The post is dedicated to building a “shared nothing” cluster. It is an experimental part of a series and features a “Shared Nothing” Hyper-V guest VM cluster. As always, there is a detailed instruction as to how to create the subject setup and there are results for everyone to check.

This post is dedicated to the new solution from Microsoft – the Microsoft Storage Replica. It is a practical part of a series of posts about this technology and features a “Shared Nothing” Hyper-V HA VM Cluster in practice. Microsoft Storage Replica is designed to perform replication between various media: servers, clusters, volumes inside a server, etc. It’s typical usage scenario is Disaster Recovery, which is essential for data protection in case anything happens to the main location. Critical data is replicated to a remote site, often located hundreds and thousands of miles away for better data safety. The experiment is performed by StarWind engineers, so the post contains detailed instructions and a comprehensive conclusion.