Have you ever wondered what life in the virtualization world would be like without a clustered filesystem? Thanks to Microsoft Hyper-V, NTFS, and their failover cluster service, you no longer have to wonder, you can read about it in great detail.

In a world without VMFS, in order to have HA virtual machines or quick migration (let’s not bring up live migration today, since it is shipping “in 2010″) here is the most important point: Each virtual machine must be on its own LUN. Are you on good terms with your SAN administrator? Looks like the two of you are going to be chatting quite often.

Now if you prefer, you could set up several virtual machines on one LUN. But it turns out that such a plan would be destined for failure. No pun intended. Please take a look at the following quote from a Microsoft Technet blog:

If you group clustered VMs on a single LUN, don’t shut down the OS from within the OS or from Hyper-V Manager, this is not a cluster-aware shutdown and counts as a failure. The OS will be restarted by the cluster and then if you go “what the ?!?!” and shut it down again, depending on how the cluster resource is configured this will induce a failover to another node, taking the rest of your VMs with it. Try explaining that outage to your boss when a business critical server goes out of action for a couple of minutes at a crucial period because you shut down a scratch VM you had been using to test some software. I for one do not feel like having to get a change request authorized just to shut down a machine. Once you have made a VM a clustered VM, ALWAYS use Failover Cluster Management or the SCVMM Console to shut it down.

Ouch! What happens on Patch Tuesday? Let’s not find out.

One last thought: What about SAN deduplication technology that operates per-LUN?

Related posts:

1. IGT Part 4: Failover frustration
2. IGT Part 3: One-VM-per-LUN doubters
3. Choose any two: Hyper-V, HA, Linux
4. Hands off that CSV!

Brace yourself for a tidal wave of FUD from Redmond that perhaps only the Linux community has known.  Here are a couple examples for you.

Take a look at this item from the Top Ten Benefits list:

Support for Microsoft Virtual Server and VMware ESX
With this release, VMM now manages VMware ESX virtualized infrastructure in conjunction with the Virtual Center product. Now administrators running multiple virtualization platforms can rely on one tool to manage virtually everything. With its compatibility with VMware VI3 (through Virtual Center), VMM now supports features such as VMotion and can also provide VMM-specific features like Intelligent Placement to VMware servers.

Wow, isn’t this amazing.  Now even VMware users can benefit from the awesome and innovative Intelligent Placement.  At last!  The only problem with this statement is complete omission of the fact that VMware DRS has had an intelligent placement option since its release over two years ago.  You may recognize it:

Here is another little gem from the FAQ:

Q. Does this product enable “live” migration or zero downtime migration of workloads across physical servers?

A. Yes, when used with the VMware’s Virtual Center product, VMM can move workloads across physical hosts via VMotion. In a Hyper-V environment there is a short service interruption as workloads are moved via Quick Migration. The length of that service interruption will depend on the time needed to copy the files from one source server to the target, and will be sensitive to storage and network infrastructure. The migration wizard will automatically detect SAN infrastructure and will enable the admin to choose to migrate files over SAN at much faster pace.

Emphasis mine.  VMM hasn’t enabled anything, it is calling a VMware API.  They neglected to mention the fact that VMware ESX is also required.

How is that any different from this:

Q. Can you haul this sofa in your Volkswagen Beetle?

A. Yes, I will borrow my friend’s truck to haul the sofa.  I can also haul two of the cushions in my VW.

Note to Microsoft: VirtualCenter is one word, not two.

Related posts:

1. May I speak to the manager?
2. On Quick Storage Migration in R2
3. SCVMM Damage Control
4. SCVMM 2008 Management Pack Finally Released

A typical, albeit incorrect, comparison goes something like this:

• Both products are bare metal hypervisors
• VMware has lots of great features, like VMotion (live migration)
• But those great features make the solution more expensive
• Hyper-V (with quick migration) is good enough

The other day a colleague pointed out a Microsoft blog that upped the ante one further, taking this quote from an iTNews article:

“You’ve got to question whether it’s worth paying $50,000 for that. I know the VMware camp go on about features like VMotion, but for $50,000 I could pay someone to move my virtual machines for me.”

Several commenters on the article have already questioned the legitimacy of this $50K figure; I’ve got nothing to add there.  You can deploy a VMware solution for less than that.

The part that really strikes me is the misguided concept of paying someone to move VMs.  It’s really not clear how any amount of additional money/personnel in your organization could help you move VMs without downtime in a Hyper-V environment.

So now, be on the lookout for another critical talking point to appear in future VMware vs. Microsoft articles:

• Money saved by not buying VMware can be used to hire additional system administrators

“Hey boss, where do you want these virtual machines?”

Related posts:

1. On Quick Storage Migration in R2
2. How to see if Quick Migration is right for your workload
3. Hyper-V More Stable, Just as Mature as VMware vSphere?
4. What would things be like without VMFS?

So, the best thing to do is to test the applications that will eventually run in virtual servers with Quick Migration and see what happens. Then, in a physical server with the installed application, run it and use it to perform an action. Mid-way through the process, disconnect the network cable, count to 10, restore it, and see what happens.

Is Quick Migration “good enough” for your workload?  Don’t count on it.

Related posts:

1. On Quick Storage Migration in R2
2. Exclusive: Hyper-V 2013 Product Roadmap
3. Hey boss, where do you want these virtual machines?
4. Hyper-V Console Disconnects During Live Migration