Hyper-V over SMB – Sample Configurations

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

 

image

 

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

 

image

 

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

 

image

 

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

 

image

 

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

 

image

 

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

 

image

 

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: https://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: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/VIR306