Windows Server 2012 New Feature: Hyper-V Replica for Failover

For mission critical systems, we often want to try to achieve the highest level of up time as possible, and the best disaster recovery strategy.  Often this involves expensive software which replicates servers or data for failover purposes.  This means that if a primary server goes down, another server is waiting to take its place.  Sometimes this failover is automatic and sometimes a network admin has to flip a virtual switch to make the failover go live.  In all cases, the solution requires lots of expensive licensing and extensive planning.

Hyper-V is Microsoft’s hypervisor platform for virtualization and is part of Windows Server 2012 Server (Standard and Datacenter editions), as well as Windows 8.  There is no extra cost for using Hyper-V, only the license for the copy of Windows it is running on.  Microsoft also offers a completely free option as well in Hyper-V Server (which is Hyper-V as an operating system without Windows).

Hyper-V Transports Logs to Replica (click to enlarge)

Hyper-V Transports Logs to Replica (click to enlarge)

In Hyper-V for Windows 2012 and Hyper-V Server, we now have a built-in replication feature.  This means that you can configure a virtual machine running in Hyper-V to automatically replicate (as often as every 30 minutes) to another Hyper-V host.  If the other Hyper-V host is on a different network or even a different site, you can set a different IP configuration for the failover server.

Creating The Replica

First you create your replica starting point which is basically a copy of your entire virtual machine.  During this process you also configure where the VM will replicate to (the recipient Hyper-V host).  The initial bits can be quite large, so Microsoft gives us a few ways to transport this large amount of data to the recipient host including using an external USB drive.

Once the initial bits are copied over to this second Hyper-V host, then replication starts at the interval you specify.  With Hyper-V Replica only one of the copies of the VM is running at any given time.  Changes are merged into the replica VM similar to the way Hyper-V merges snapshots into a stopped VM.

Failing Over to the Replica

Using Hyper-V Manager there is no way to create an automatic failover, so this part is manual.  To failover, simply right-click on the main VM, and select “Failover”.  The primary VM turns off and the replica turns on.  There is even a feature to do a test failover.

Not bad functionality for a free product!!  To see how Hyper-V stacks up against VMware, check out this episode of ITProGuru vs. Radio.

 

Robert Borges

About Robert...

I have been in the IT industry since 1993 focusing mainly on networking. Though I got an early start as an amateur computer enthusiast and wrote my first database app at age 12, I started my professional career working in the MIS department of one of the largest liquor distributors in the northeast. I started out there as a systems operator on the company’s two mainframe systems. From there I moved into PC support, and help design and implement the company’s first client-server network… This was back in the days of Win NT 3.51 when I worked on my first migration to Windows NT 4.0 server.

From there I went on to work with Novell 3.x and 4.x along with Windows domains and Microsft's brand new Active Directory. Working my way up from technician to specialist, to an administrator, and eventually all the way up to Sr. Engineer. I spent many years working for MSPs/consulting firms, 9 of which I owned and operated my own firm.

Over the years, I have worked with (at an expert level) various versions of Windows client and server operating systems (including Windows 11 and Windows Server 2019); various virtualization technologies (Hyper-V, VMware, etc.); MS-SQL server 6.5- 2014 R2; Exchange 4-2019, and much more.  Over the years I have built a lot of experience around the Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 cloud environments.

I am now CTO at Infused Innovations where our team is focusing on helping clients build a Secure Intelligent Workplace through InfoSec (Zero Trusts Framework), Modern Workplace, and Business Intelligence.

I have been heavily involved in the IT user group community, including serving as president of the board of Boston User Groups, Inc., and president of IT-Pro User Group. In 2017/2018 Microsoft awarded me the Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) Award, with a focus of Microsoft Azure cloud, for my efforts in the IT community.

I am in a constant state of learning about new products, and new versions of products. Many of which we end up implementing in lab environments and sometimes for our clients. I have a very broad range of expertise and experience. It is my goal to share some of this experience on this blog to help enrich the IT community.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.robertborges.us/2013/04/windows/windows-server-2012/windows-server-2012-new-feature-hyper-v-replica-for-failover/

Leave a Reply