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DC on Hyper-V Cluster
Hello,
I have two physical servers that are running 2012r2 and I want to create a hyperv cluster using these two physical servers and one physical NAS. I have done this previously without issue but I had an external domain controller in those situations.
In this situation I want the DC to reside on the hyperv cluster, for example on vmhost1 and an exchange server to run on vmhost2. I want them in a virtual environment so that they can fail over if one of the physical hosts fail.
I have read many docs for and against this scenario and can't find a conclusive answer. I am sometimes told that I need to make the nodes of the cluster DC's themselves so that a domain structure exists when they start. Others say that you can create the one and only DC on the vmhost and that if everything needs to reboot the vmhosts will startup up and start the DC vm even though the DC needs to be on first.
I was also told that exchange will not function on a vm is the host is a DC and that if I do virtualize my DC that it cannot be part of the failover cluster and must be manually failed over.
I am looking for general guidence on this type of setup and tips on how to implement it if you have done so already. How do I build the hyperv cluster without a DC to start with?
Thanks in advance.
I have two physical servers that are running 2012r2 and I want to create a hyperv cluster using these two physical servers and one physical NAS. I have done this previously without issue but I had an external domain controller in those situations.
In this situation I want the DC to reside on the hyperv cluster, for example on vmhost1 and an exchange server to run on vmhost2. I want them in a virtual environment so that they can fail over if one of the physical hosts fail.
I have read many docs for and against this scenario and can't find a conclusive answer. I am sometimes told that I need to make the nodes of the cluster DC's themselves so that a domain structure exists when they start. Others say that you can create the one and only DC on the vmhost and that if everything needs to reboot the vmhosts will startup up and start the DC vm even though the DC needs to be on first.
I was also told that exchange will not function on a vm is the host is a DC and that if I do virtualize my DC that it cannot be part of the failover cluster and must be manually failed over.
I am looking for general guidence on this type of setup and tips on how to implement it if you have done so already. How do I build the hyperv cluster without a DC to start with?
Thanks in advance.
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Thank you all for your comments. I think this is what I am leaning towards welcome your replies:
two physical hosts, vmhost1 and vmhost2. I will create a DC on BOTH hyperv hosts that is outside of the cluster. This way it doesnt try to fail over, and I simply have a second DC to handle requests.
Exchange on the other hand, I still want to create a cluster with shared storage that exchange will run off of and attempt to allow that to fail over. If this is really going to break exchange then I could fall back to a non-auto failover and just fire the vm up on the other host manually in case of an issue.
The other big question is... the two physical hosts need to be domain joined to form the cluster so if the DC is virtual how do I form the cluster before the vm is created?
Thanks
two physical hosts, vmhost1 and vmhost2. I will create a DC on BOTH hyperv hosts that is outside of the cluster. This way it doesnt try to fail over, and I simply have a second DC to handle requests.
Exchange on the other hand, I still want to create a cluster with shared storage that exchange will run off of and attempt to allow that to fail over. If this is really going to break exchange then I could fall back to a non-auto failover and just fire the vm up on the other host manually in case of an issue.
The other big question is... the two physical hosts need to be domain joined to form the cluster so if the DC is virtual how do I form the cluster before the vm is created?
Thanks
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two physical hosts, vmhost1 and vmhost2. I will create a DC on BOTH hyperv hosts that is outside of the cluster
I believe above plan will work.
Please check the below blog posts
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/11/24/the-domain-controller-dilemma.aspx
http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/sanderberkouwer/archive/2013/10/08/active-directory-in-hyper-v-environments-part-10.aspx
I believe above plan will work.
Please check the below blog posts
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/11/24/the-domain-controller-dilemma.aspx
http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/sanderberkouwer/archive/2013/10/08/active-directory-in-hyper-v-environments-part-10.aspx
2nd thing, do not put any role on Hyper-V physical server hosts other than Hyper-V
Its not good from performance and also you break free Vm licenses in case of windows 2102 standard edition
I always prefer plain Hyper-V servers \ Hyper-V clusters
Active directory is multi master replication model and in reality it works better out of cluster with Two DCs (physical \ virtual) which provides you redundancy \ failover \ stable environment and that's how Domain controller HA suppose to.
Clustered DC is not the best method to deploy HA for Domain controllers, I haven't seen in yet with any of my clients even it is possible to do.
However if your environment is small, you can build single virtual DC with always start with physical OS option in Hyper-V settings of that DC VM, but this is best suite for Lab setup because in lab most of the time the only physical server is hyper-v host, unfortunately this is not the case in case of production environment
Mahesh