can't make Virtual Machine Configuration dependent on Storage in cluster
- I an running a two node cluster under Hyper-V Server R2. The clustering wizard is great, but I am having problems with failover because the dependencies don't seem to get created properly.
My setup is that I generally have 1 VM per LUN, and each LUN is mounted as a Cluster Shared Volume for simplicity. It'a a lot easier to work with LUNS mounted under CSV than GUIDs, and I have too many LUNs for drive letters. I have the VHD and Virtual Machine Configuration on the LUN, such as C:\ClusterStorage\VM1\ .
My problem is that if my disk goes down for whatever reason (such as a networking problem), my VM will crash, but the Virtual Machine Configuration hasn't technically failed because it isn't dependant on anything. My VM gets stuck in a state where I can't migrate it, fail it, or start it. I think that I need to make the Virtual Machine Configuration dependant on the storage that it's stored on. I would also need to make the VM dependant on storage if any of the VHD files were stored on a different volume. I have not seen any documentation on how to get this working. When I go to properties on the Virtual Machine Configuration and then go to the Dependencies tab and then click on insert, I am unable to select anything under Resource.
Here is output from a Dependency Report
'Virtual Machine Configuration SRVPNT1' has no required dependencies.
'Virtual Machine SRVPNT1' dependencies are 'Virtual Machine Configuration SRVPNT1'.
'Virtual Machine SRVPNT1' required dependencies are Virtual Machine Configuration.
Thanks for your help!
All Replies
- You should remove the 'Virtual Machine SRVPNT1' dependencies are 'Virtual Machine Configuration SRVPNT1' dependency. You should then be able to make the Virtual Machine Configuration dependant upon the 'Virtual Machine Configuration SRVPNT1' (which I assume is your volume?). You will now have a dependency chain of Virtual Machine dependant upon Virtual Machine Configuration dependant upon Volume.
David A. Bermingham, Director of Product Management, SteelEye Technology The virtual machine is called SRVPNT1, and the resource is 'Virtual Machine SRVPNT1', which has 1 required dependency, the Virtual Machine Configuration, ''Virtual Machine Configuration SRVPNT1'. The configuration itself has no dependency, even though it it clearly dependant on the cluster shared volume. I setup another VM using standard volumes instead of CSV, and things looked right. I will setup a VM on my test cluster using CSV and then fail the CSV and see what happens. I wonder if Microsoft is thinking that with CSV that the resource will always be available because of redirected access, but this isn't the case. If the LUN goes offline for whatever reason (it fills up and goes offline, networking issues, SAN administrator takes it offline, etc.) the VM would lose access to the disk, and the configuration wouldn't go offline either, even though it should. At any rate, I will try it.
I'll have to check that out. I haven't used CSV much to tell if what you are seeing is expected or not.
David A. Bermingham, Director of Product Management, SteelEye TechnologyJust a short confirmation.
On the three W2K8 R2 cluster with CSV and Hyper-V I have touched it is also not possible to make a dependency from the virtual machine to the used disk!
Regards
Olaf
