Can I host ONE VM from two servers? [closed]
looked around for a bit and I could not find a definitive answer. My setup is for educational purposes as I am in a CCNA/Cybersecurity program thru my college.
Anywho lets get down to it~ PC A is upstairs, directly above my main router/modem. It has Windows 2022 Datacenter on it, thanks to my College for making such tools available. This server is connected to a separate router via a WiFi repeater which has ONE gigabit connection on it. The repeater can be setup as a client AP, or a bridge. Considering I have a router installed on the gigabit, the server is now running off the router. I just needed more ports for all my machines - I have a switch for downstairs, just not hooked up yet. PC B is downstairs hardlined to my router. This is a near identical machine, just the model number is slightly different - PC A is an HP 8570w and PC B is a HP 8760w. PC A has a better processor, mSATA (which is where my VMs are stored), and 2 SSD's on RAID0. PC B is slightly slower, but a better GPU, but THREE SSD's (all the same), 2 of which are on RAID0 and the primary drive, hosts the OS, 2022 Datacenter. They also have equal amounts of RAM, 32g each.
The goal is to deploy a VM to a client PC, utilizing both servers (a pool I believe its called). I do not run any fancy software, the VM is simply for college stuff should I decide to do it on my couch downstairs. The client will be hardlined to my router, as will PC B.
So cutting to the point:
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Can I utilize two servers to "balance" the workload demands for one VM deployment? PC A is faster, and possibly a 1-2ms difference, yet PC B is sitting below my client PC. If so, how? Perhaps a link for further instructions to kick me in the right direction?
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I suppose the biggest question, is there any point? In a large corporation setting I can see why failover clusters and replication could be useful, but this is not my goal. I simply want to balance the workload so if PC B's CPU is at redline, PC A can kick in to help - or vice versa. Same goes with RAM. By no means do I plan on running a VM with say, 64g of RAM. Most is 8gb, dynamic of course. Any help or advice in this situation?
Thanks everyone!
Solution 1:
- Yes, and no.
High availability and fault tolerance can be managed with replication or failover clustering. In older versions of HyperV, this wasn't supported, and you had to migrate systems manually. In newer versions, this is natively supported.
Here's how to setup Hyper V Replication: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/manage/set-up-hyper-v-replica
Here's how to setup Hyper V Failover Cluster: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/failover-clustering/create-failover-cluster
If you're talking about splitting 1 workload (like a web service) across 2 vms, that's not exactly the intent of replication or failover clustering. You'd need to add some kind of load balancing technology on top of your replication or failover cluster solution.
- Yes, and no.
It's not about the size of the company. It's about what kind of risk the company is willing to accept. If the company can't allow any downtime, then they need these features. If a company says they can go X amount of hours while someone's trying to fix the issue, then there's less need for these features.
Otherwise, what you're talking about is load balancing. You shouldn't use replication or failover clustering to manage resource issues.
You should read this documentation on System Center Virtual Machine Manager: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/system-center/vmm/whats-new-in-vmm?view=sc-vmm-2019