Author Topic: Hyper-V Lab (Read 1320 times)

Pete · **on:** October 03, 2013, 20:36:29 PM

Hyper-V Lab

on: October 03, 2013, 20:36:29 PM

I need to make a lab to run HV with 5 or 6 VMs. Ideally I'd like something I can upgrade to a HA solution but at the moment I just need something I use to practice for a mcse.

I'm thinking an older gen Intel CPU + a motherboard that can fit lots of RAM to start with. I'm not sure what to do about storage so onboard RAID would be nice.

I'm way out of the loop with hardware though - is SLAT essential for HV? Could I get away with an E6xxx or E8xxx or is there something better for not much ££££?

Cypher · **Reply #1 on:** October 06, 2013, 13:22:22 PM

Re: Hyper-V Lab

Reply #1 on: October 06, 2013, 13:22:22 PM

I picked up a DL360 G7 quite cheap. I don't know that much about SLAT, all I know is that you have to ensure the processor is virtualisation compatible.

With Server 2012 standard, you can do fail over easily without additional licensing, it will replicate the VM to another Hyper-V ready to go. I'd pick up 2 identical cheap servers with the focus on RAM.

Microsoft has been trying to take the onus away from storage requirements a while now. This can even been seen in Exchange with database replication. They really strongly believe in the future of an environment without a backup. Not that I completely believe in that myself. Database corruption and all that jazz.

Rivkid · **Reply #2 on:** October 06, 2013, 15:09:37 PM

Re: Hyper-V Lab

Reply #2 on: October 06, 2013, 15:09:37 PM

I did my entire Hyper-V HA proof of concept on 2 Dell D630 laptops, running VM's from USB drives to avoid disk bottlenecks. That included one VM running openfiler to simulate shared storage for the failover clustering (as Cypher says though not needed in 2012 as you can do it on a basic share).

This setup worked great for me and I just borrowed the kit from work - but I guess it depends how intensive your VM's need to be or how long you need it running. Mine were just to prove Hyper-V would work as we needed it to over a couple of weeks of testing.

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