I am running most of my VMs under Virtual Server 2005 R2, with just 1 VM under Hyper-V, but the concept is the same.
I put each VHD onto it's own iSCSI LUN. This makes it easier to move MVs from host to host, because it's just a matter of mounting and unmounting the LUN from each host. No need to copy VHD files or try to have shared access to them.
I mount each LUN into an empty NTFS folder. This way I don't use a drive letter for each VM.
I put all of the files (VHD and configuration) into a folder inside the LUN. I do this because I had problems with setting NTFS permissions properly to files at the root of the drive.
If a server just needs an OS and basic disk, it all goes on a VHD. My file, SQL, and Exchange servers make iSCSI connections to the SAN itself. I do this so that I still get all of the advanced SAN functionality such as the ability to grow the volume on the fly, application aware snapshots, hardware VSS backups, etc. These servers interact with the SAN just like physical machines.
I have been running VMs with my SAN for close to two years now, so I am pretty confident that this is a good configuration. Virtual Machine Manager made me put each VM on it's own LUN so that it can do the quick migrations.
Main Topics
Browse All Topics





by: javajoPosted on 2008-10-01 at 08:11:10ID: 22615191
Should this perhaps be moved to a different zone? Perhaps a Server 2008 Hyper V zone? Or a SAN zone...?