This post describes a few different Hyper-V over SMB sample configurations with increasing levels of availability. Not all configurations are recommended for production deployment, since some do not provide continuous availability. The goal of the post is to show how one can add redundancy, Storage Spaces and Failover Clustering in different ways to provide additional fault tolerance to the configuration.
1 – All Standalone
Hyper-V
- Standalone, shares used for VHD storage
File Server
- Standalone, Local Storage
Configuration highlights
- Flexibility (Migration, shared storage)
- Simplicity (File Shares, permissions)
- Low acquisition and operations cost
Configuration lowlights
- Storage not fault tolerant
- File server not continuously available
- Hyper-V VMs not highly available
- Hardware setup and OS install by IT Pro
2 – All Standalone + Storage Spaces
Hyper-V
- Standalone, shares used for VHD storage
File Server
- Standalone, Storage Spaces
Configuration highlights
- Flexibility (Migration, shared storage)
- Simplicity (File Shares, permissions)
- Low acquisition and operations cost
- Storage is Fault Tolerant
Configuration lowlights
- File server not continuously available
- Hyper-V VMs not highly available
- Hardware setup and OS install by IT Pro
3 – Standalone File Server, Clustered Hyper-V
Hyper-V
- Clustered, shares used for VHD storage
File Server
- Standalone, Storage Spaces
Configuration highlights
- Flexibility (Migration, shared storage)
- Simplicity (File Shares, permissions)
- Low acquisition and operations cost
- Storage is Fault Tolerant
- Hyper-V VMs are highly available
Configuration lowlights
- File server not continuously available
- Hardware setup and OS install by IT Pro
4 – Clustered File Server, Standalone Hyper-V
Hyper-V
- Standalone, shares used for VHD storage
File Server
- Clustered, Storage Spaces
Configuration highlights
- Flexibility (Migration, shared storage)
- Simplicity (File Shares, permissions)
- Low acquisition and operations cost
- Storage is Fault Tolerant
- File Server is Continuously Available
Configuration lowlights
- Hyper-V VMs not highly available
- Hardware setup and OS install by IT Pro
5 – All Clustered
Hyper-V
- Clustered, shares used for VHD storage
File Server
- Clustered, Storage Spaces
Configuration highlights
- Flexibility (Migration, shared storage)
- Simplicity (File Shares, permissions)
- Low acquisition and operations cost
- Storage is Fault Tolerant
- Hyper-V VMs are highly available
- File Server is Continuously Available
Configuration lowlights
- Hardware setup and OS install by IT Pro
6 – Cluster-in-a-box
Hyper-V
- Clustered, shares used for VHD storage
File Server
- Cluster-in-a-box
Configuration highlights
- Flexibility (Migration, shared storage)
- Simplicity (File Shares, permissions)
- Low acquisition and operations cost
- Storage is Fault Tolerant
- File Server is continuously Available
- Hardware and OS pre-configured by the OEM
More details
You can find additional details on these configurations in this TechNet Radio show: http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/TechNet+Radio/TechNet-Radio-SMB-30-Deployment-Scenarios
You can also find more information about the Hyper-V over SMB scenario in this TechEd video recording: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/VIR306