Use HYPER-V Live Migration without Failover Clustering - Part 2

In the first Part explain some of the reasons that requested to move Virtual Machines in different HYPER-V Hosts.

We found out that Live Migration has different Move types and different Move Options that can use. 

The most important is that Live Migration can move the Virtual Machine from one Hyper-v Host to another without no impact on virtual machine availability to user.

This time i will explain the rest of Move types and options that can use it.

I hope to find the most suitable Move type to use with Live Migration.

Shared-Nothing Live Migration is the Move Type that will describe today because has not to share anything of the virtual machine data. All data (virtual machine files , disks , snapshots)  located local in Physical Server and must move all of them.

Before start to read this article must read the Part 1.

Use HYPER-V Live Migration without Failover Clustering - Part 1

Are you ready ?

So let's start

Move the virtual machine data to a single location

• Open Hyper-v Manager.
• Select the Virtual Machine and click Move Button from the right side.

• In the first step click Next

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• Here must select the Move Type that will use. Select Move Virtual Machine and click Next.

• Select the destination HYPER-V Host and click Next.

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• Here i must select the Move Option that will use.
• You have 3 Options
  • The first option Move the virtual machine data to a single location transfer all the folders and files of the Virtual Machine in a destination path that you will select . 
  • The second option Move the virtual machine data by selected where to move items give you the option to select different path for every folder and files which included in the virtual machine folder.
  • The last option Move only Virtual machine discuss it in the First Part.
• I will select the first option Move the virtual machine data to a single location. Click Next

• Click Browse and specify the path in the destination HYPER-V Host.Click Next.

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• Get a summary of your Options and click Finish to perform the move.

• As you can see i get an error because in the destination HYPER-V Host it's not created a Virtual Switch  with the same name as in source HYPER-V Host.
• So as one of the requirements that i describe in the first Part before start the Live Migration is to have the same names of Virtual Switches in source and destination HYPER-V Host. 
• You have the option to select one of the Virtual Switches from destination HYPER-V Host. I will not continue with this way.
• So i will cancel the Live Migration , i will create a new Virtual Switch in the destination HYPER-V Host with the same name of the source HYPER-V Host and start again from the beginning.

if you want to find more details and what exactly happened when Perform Live Migration you can open https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831435(v=ws.11).aspx and read very carefully the Technical Overview

Move the virtual machine data by selected where to move items

Windows Server 2012 HYPER-V gives you the option to move virtual machine data in different locations. 

So let's start to explain how can use it 

• Open Hyper-v Manager
• Select the Virtual Machine and click Move Button from the right side.

• In the first step click Next.

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• Select Move Virtual Machine and click Next.

• Select the destination HYPER-V Host and click Next.

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• Select the option Move the virtual machine data by selected where to move items give you the option to select different path for every folder and files which include the virtual machine.Click next.

• In this step must to select one from 3 Advance Options to Move.
  • Move the virtual machines data automatically.
    This option move all the Virtual Machine data in the same location that already have. Of course this request to have exactly the same number of disks with the same Letters.
    For example:
    If you have the Virtual Machine in path E:\Hyper-v\VM then will transfer all the virtual machine data to E:\Hyper-v\VM in the destination HYPER-V Host
  • Move the virtual machine hard disks to different locations
    This option allows you to specify different location for virtual hard disks of virtual machine .......
  1. If you select this option then in next step you must select the Virtual Hard disks and click Next.
  2. Specify the location in the destination server that you want to move Virtual hard disks and click Next.
  3. All the other folder of Virtual Machine move in the appropriate folder of the destination HYPER-V Host.
  • Move the virtual machine items to different locations
    This option allows you to move every folder and file of virtual machine data to different location
  1. If you select this option in the next step you must check all the items and Click Next.
  2. In the next 4 Steps you must select the locations individual for every folder or file that has choose in the previous step.
  3. Last step is a summary of all the previous steps. Click finish to perform the move.
• Decide which Move option to select and continue to Perform the Move.

• If you select the last option in the next steps you must give paths for every folder and files from the virtual machine data.

• When finish successful the Migration you will find the VM in the destination HYPER-V Host without any interruption.

Live Migration it's a tool that can use it to move virtual machines from one HYPER-V Host to another.But you can use it as manual Failover Solution if they don't need guarantees of the High Availability in the environment. in case that you face issues with your HYPER-V Host.

I am sure that most of you have use Failover Clustering. But it's time to get a feedback from users with experience in Live Migration out of Cluster environment.

Write your experience with Live Migration in our commented system and share it with hundreds of IT Pro in our commented system.

Have a nice weekend.