Help a Hyper-V Noob...

Danp

Setting up a host with HV 2012 R2 and I'm unsure how to correctly configure the network / virtual switches for "optimal" performance. Will ultimately have two hosts, each with 4 NICs.

Do I need a dedicated NIC for host management? Live migration? If so, where is this defined?
How do I implement NIC teaming? Can this be accomplished within the HV Manager GUI?
Is there a "preferred" teaming scenario, ie: 1 dedicated / 3 teamed vs 2 sets of 2 teamed?

Appreciate any and all input.

Dan

Danp

Just thought I would clarify that this setup is using all local storage, so none of the NICs are needed for that.

NIC teaming is done at the windows OS level of you did a GUI install just go to the network adapters select them and create a team. If no GUI then you have to use powershell.

You don't need a NIC dedicated to management. Not sure about live migration, I think that might just be a Vnic as well that can use the team but you need SCCM for that.

Danp

Appreciate the response. I'm using the free Hyper-V Server 2012 R2, so no GUI on the host. I'm able to remotely access / manage the host using the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10. I know this can be used to setup the virtual NICs, but not sure if it can handle the NIC teaming.

I'm not really familiar with SCCM. Is it possible to migrate VMs between hosts without it?

@Danp said:

Appreciate the response. I'm using the free Hyper-V Server 2012 R2, so no GUI on the host. I'm able to remotely access / manage the host using the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10. I know this can be used to setup the virtual NICs, but not sure if it can handle the NIC teaming.

I haven't tried it before but you might be able to connect Server Manager to Hyper v Server and then do the Nic Team if not it's Powershell only.

@Danp said:

I'm not really familiar with SCCM. Is it possible to migrate VMs between hosts without it?

You can manually move them via the Move-VM powershell command, you might be able to do it from Hyper-V manager but you want have any automated moving based on rules.

coliver

@Danp said:

Appreciate the response. I'm using the free Hyper-V Server 2012 R2, so no GUI on the host. I'm able to remotely access / manage the host using the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10. I know this can be used to setup the virtual NICs, but not sure if it can handle the NIC teaming.

I'm not really familiar with SCCM. Is it possible to migrate VMs between hosts without it?

Do you have a Windows 8.1 or 10 machine? If you do you can use Server Manager to configure the NIC Teaming. Just need to download RSAT and connect to the server. Very easy.

You can live migrate between hosts that have the same CPU architecture and cold(?) migrate between hosts with different CPU architectures by just using Hyper-V Manager.

I really haven't had a need for SCCM (or SCVMM) at least as far as management goes it does have some nice logging features though.

Danp

Thanks @coliver . I will definitely take a look at RSAT.

coliver

@Danp said:

Thanks @coliver . I will definitely take a look at RSAT.

As @thecreativeone91 mentioned in a different thread RSAT isn't available on Window 10 yet... so you will have to remote into a Windows 8.1 or Server 2012R2 machine to get that interface.