Migrate Virtual Machine Storage in HYPER-V Failover Clustering

By Tzouvaras Constantinos
Copyright 2018 Tzouvaras Constantinos

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 Migrate Virtual Machine
Storage in HYPER-V Failover
Clustering

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Table of Contents
Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 4
Migrate Virtual Machine Storage in HYPER-V Failover Clustering ................................................................ 4

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Overview
Hyper-v Host can be use standalone in small environments but in medium and large environments you
need high availability.

Hyper-v Failover Clustering is the solution to keep high available with almost zero downtime when one
of your HYPER-V Hosts encounter serious problem and must be bring offline.

If you are using Failover Clustering you know that you can Live Migrate Virtual Machines from one
HYPER-V Host to another but the Storage of Virtual Machine stay in the same location.

Migrate Virtual Machine Storage in HYPER-V Failover Clustering

In scenarios like replace Share Storage, request to move Virtual Machine in another Volume in Windows
Server 2012 R2 you can Live Migrate full Virtual Machine Storage.

This means that all the files which included in Virtual Machine folder:

 Virtual machine files which include all the configuration

 Virtual disk files
 smart paging files
 checkpoint files

will be move In the new path that will be select.

To avoid access denied errors while start the migrations and Event id 20810 HYPER-V VMMS in Event
Viewer create a new folder in the Volume that you would like to transfer the Virtual Machine with the
name of the Virtual Machine

Open Failover Clustering Console

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Select the Virtual Machine that you would like to migrate and right click

Select Move - - - > Virtual Machine Storage

Let's explain what is going on here.

In the top you can see the virtual machine that you have select and if you expanded you can see what
included.

In the bottom you have two sides. In the left side include all the Volumes that are available in Cluster
Storage In the right side include what files has the specific Volume that you will have select from the left
side

From the left side select the Volume that you want to migrate the Virtual Machine.

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Select the folder which create in the beginning to avoid access denied errors.

Click Start button.

When the migration start in Failover Clustering Console you can see in Information field “Start virtual
machine storage migration ....”And nothing else.

This is not the most helpful to monitoring the progress of the migration.

Instead open the HYPER-V Manager.

Select the Virtual Machine and you can see in Status the progress of migration.

Wait until finish.

After finish the transfer you can verify that the Virtual Machine storage transferred if you will open the
settings of Virtual Machine and check the path of the virtual disks.

If the migration finish successful the path will be in the new destination.

After verify start the Virtual Machine to check for any issue.

You can use the feature to do a Live Migration when the VM is online but the performance will be
reduce or you can do it after shutdown the Virtual Machine.

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Thank you for reading my book.

Tzouvaras Konstantinos

About the author

I work in IT from 2004. I start in a Small Company as System Administrator and at the same time design
and create the IT infrastructure of the company from scratch.

Over several years gained experience in different areas like Exchange Server, Windows Servers and
more advance in IT Infrastructure of a Company for better performance and productivity , Monitoring
Solutions in critical Systems and not only, Disaster Recovery, and Migrations.

Today i focus more in Virtualization Area , Windows Servers and PowerShell to help automate tasks for
IT Administrators day by day.

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