Hyper-V replication licensing
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@DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
@Mike-Davis To fail over at all (in any reasonable fashion) they would be required to purchase 2 server standard licenses. Who honestly remembers that 90 days have passed, and we can migrate back to our production system.
Is the system that they would be failing over to (in an disaster event) match what they have currently? Same specs?
The mindset of staying physical because it poses less risk is an emotional response. What you could do (and just for demonstration purposes setup a tiny hypervisor using virtualbox on your laptop, corrupt the OS of the VM. And revert to a backup you've made.
If they don't like USB (I agree) then they should really look at a NAS as you've mentioned. The synology line can backup to other Synology quite easily. If the upfront cost of that is out, maybe they can backup to a service provider like BackBlaze.
From the way @Mike-Davis has explained it both systems will be "production" if one fails then the second will take over even when the other one is replaced/repaired.
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@coliver yes, they want to buy two servers and two licenses anyways. I'm suggesting virtualizing them so that they are not totally down if one goes down. It would be nice to save $600 on a server license since they won't be running on it unless their primary server fails.
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@coliver Even in this case, they still would be required to purchase two server standard licenses (1 per host). As you can't split the licensing up like that.
Which would give the client the full benefit of the fail over capabilities they don't seem to understand.
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@Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
@coliver yes, they want to buy two servers and two licenses anyways. I'm suggesting virtualizing them so that they are not totally down if one goes down. It would be nice to save $600 on a server license since they won't be running on it unless their primary server fails.
If they are purchasing two servers, and Server Standard licenses for each host, then no additional expense (for licensing Windows) would be required.
And they'd be completely compliant to migrate the VM's around ever minute if they wanted to.
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@DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
@coliver Even in this case, they still would be required to purchase two server standard licenses (1 per host). As you can't split the licensing up like that.
Which would give the client the full benefit of the fail over capabilities they don't seem to understand.
They aren't splitting the licensing. They are doing little other then migrating that licensing. Granted if they have multiple failure events then they will certainly have to get another license.
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@coliver I see that now, by @Mike-Davis followup.
I was under the impression the client wanted to simple setup two hyper-v servers (and purchase a single server standard license) for the two host.
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I would still recommend licensing the two hosts, that prevents this type of thing coming up in the future.
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@coliver said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
I would still recommend licensing the two hosts, that prevents this type of thing coming up in the future.
That would be the wise thing to do. The licensing is rather cheap as far as cost goes.
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@Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
If I had a single Windows Server Standard license, and two hyper V hosts and set up replication for the two VMs on host 1, am I good as far as licensing goes?
Yes, you are good.
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@Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
Is it like in a VMware cluster where you can have the VM spin up if it senses it went down on the other host?
Yes, HA is the same on all systems. It spins up a new VM when the old one has failed.
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@DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
@Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
If I had a single Windows Server Standard license, and two hyper V hosts and set up replication for the two VMs on host 1, am I good as far as licensing goes?
No, the licensing allows you two installations on the same hardware (as VM's go). On the second host, you would need identical, unused licensing to be in compliance.
Not with replication, because the second node is not running. Storage does not need to be licensed or else you could not have backups on tape, every tape would need a license.
Unless you are willing to not fall-back to the failed host until 90 days have passed.
Correct, standard license is one failover every 90 days.
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@coliver said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
@Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
If I had a single Windows Server Standard license, and two hyper V hosts and set up replication for the two VMs on host 1, am I good as far as licensing goes?
How good is the fail over for replicated servers? Is it like in a VMware cluster where you can have the VM spin up if it senses it went down on the other host?
You can only transfer licenses once every 90 days, to my knowledge, so if you wanted to be able to move back and forth between the host faster then that you would need to have another Server Standard license to cover the other host.
I'm not sure about the failover, I originally thought you needed SCVMM to do that but now I think Hyper-V server has that functionality as well.
But if you do, that's load balancing not failover in 99.999% of cases. That would be some extreme hardware failure if you had to move more often than that.
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@Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
They are saying that they don't want to virtualize the servers because of risk.
Make sure that you explain that this is backwards and it is never acceptable, ever, to not virtualize intentionally specifically because it is so ridiculously risky. Virtualization is there for protection, that's its benefit. Not doing so is being intentionally risky and reckless.
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@Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
They also don't like external USB drives for backup targets. They would prefer tapes and a tape drive. I suggested a rack mount NAS as a backup target if they don't like the look of a external USB drive. What do you all think?
Nothing wrong with tape on its own. But I would explain to them that this is a mismatch of needs. They clearly dont' see themselves as a viable business, but as a hobby (no virtualization.) If they don't virtualize, they can't reasonably say that they think this is a real business, they are SO far below the home line it isn't even discussable. No grey area at all, this is a hobby and a joke to their owners. Make that absolutely clear.
So having backups at all makes no sense given how little of a priority they see their own hobby to be (even a semi-serious hobby would be virtualized every time.) So why take backups at all? There is a mismatch of goals here.
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@coliver said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
From the way @Mike-Davis has explained it both systems will be "production" if one fails then the second will take over even when the other one is replaced/repaired.
NEver allow someone to refer to something physical as "Production". It just empowers them to think it's a viable option.
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@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
@DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
@Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
If I had a single Windows Server Standard license, and two hyper V hosts and set up replication for the two VMs on host 1, am I good as far as licensing goes?
No, the licensing allows you two installations on the same hardware (as VM's go). On the second host, you would need identical, unused licensing to be in compliance.
Not with replication, because the second node is not running. Storage does not need to be licensed or else you could not have backups on tape, every tape would need a license.
How did you get that from what I wrote?
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@scottalanmiller said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
@coliver said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
From the way @Mike-Davis has explained it both systems will be "production" if one fails then the second will take over even when the other one is replaced/repaired.
NEver allow someone to refer to something physical as "Production". It just empowers them to think it's a viable option.
I was referring to the new, proposed, setup not the current one.
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My statement with needing 2 licenses is one license per hardware server. Which allows you 4 VM's total (or as desired) 2 VM's with the option to fail over outside of a Disaster event.
I honestly don't see how it could be misunderstood.
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@DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:
My statement with needing 2 licenses is one license per hardware server. Which allows you 4 VM's total (or as desired) 2 VM's with the option to fail over outside of a Disaster event.
I honestly don't see how it could be misunderstood.
You are the one misunderstanding or maybe just conflating things.. @Mike-Davis does not want fail over outside of DR. So there is no point, reason, or legal need for a second Windows Server license.
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@Mike-Davis Hyper-V replication works fine but there is no automated power on or failure detection. That requires you setup a cluster and use SCCM I believe.
I use basic replication at a number of locations and it works great.
