When you are using clustering within virtualized environments that require shared
storage, you have numerous options. Where possible, use Shared VDHX, because this
maintains complete virtualization of the storage and removes direct storage fabric
visibility for the virtual machines. If Shared VHDX is not an option—if you’re not
running Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V or if you have a mixed cluster of virtual
and nonvirtual operating systems—then virtual Fibre Channel or iSCSI can be used
and perhaps even an SMB 3 file share if the service supports it.
Remember that just because Hyper-V has a great replication technology with Hyper-V
Replica, this should not be the first choice. It is always better to use an application- or
service-aware replication technology such as Active Directory replication, SQL
AlwaysOn, Exchange Database Availability Groups, and so on. Only if there is no
native replication solution should Hyper-V Replica be used. Remember that
replication is not a replacement for backups.
Do I Want a Private Cloud?
I talk to many customers about the private cloud, and some are open to it and some
just hate the idea. This is largely because of a misunderstanding about what the
private cloud has to mean to the organization. Instead of asking whether they want to
use a private cloud, I could ask the following questions and get very different
responses:
Do you want easier management and deployment?
Do you want better insight into networking and storage?
Do you want to abstract deployment processes from the underlying fabric, enabling
deployments to any datacenter without worrying about all of the underlying details
like which SAN, VLAN, IP subnet, and so on?
Do you want to track usage better and even show and charge back to business units
based on this usage?
Do you want to be able to deploy multitiered services with a single click instead of
focusing on every virtual machine that is needed?
Do you want to simplify the process of creating new virtual environments?I would get “Yes” answers to these questions from pretty much everyone. And I could
take it a step further by asking, “Do you want to enable users to request their own
virtual environments or service instances through a self-service portal with full-
approval workflow within quotas that you define, which are automatically enforced,
including virtual machine automatic expiration if required?”
I may start to get some headshaking on that one. IT teams may have concerns about
letting users have self-service portals even with quotas, even with approval workflows,
and even with full tracking. That’s OK. As with using public cloud services, when
implementing end-user self-service solutions, it can take some time for IT to trust the
controls and process and see that it won’t result in VM sprawl and a wild west of