Guidelines for using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring (T2558-96337, June 2009)

1 Solution Overview
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is a virtual management solution optimized
for Windows® Server® 2008, Microsoft Virtual Server, and VMware infrastructures. VMM enables
consolidation of physical servers onto virtual machine infrastructure.
Storage Mirroring provides real-time enterprise data protection and replication. Storage Mirroring
can be used to provide high availability for your Virtual Machine Manager server.
With the Storage Mirroring Full-Server Failover feature, you can protect the entire server, including
your data and the server’s system state, which is the server’s configured operating system and
applications. Using the Full-Server Failover Manager, Full-Server Failover automatically creates a
replication set for you, selecting all of the data and system state data on the source. Additionally,
Full-Server Failover automatically established failover monitoring, providing high availability for the
source. In the event the source fails, the target can become the source after a reboot.
This document describes the steps necessary to configure Storage Mirroring to provide high availability
for Windows Hyper-V™ servers. These procedures allow a secondary server to assume the identity
and role of a failed Virtual Machine Manager server while maintaining the availability of Virtual
Machine Manager services with minimal disruption or data loss.
To complete these instructions, you will install Virtual Machine Manager and Storage Mirroring, and
configure Storage Mirroring for replication and failover.
NOTE:
Due to the complexities of these applications, this document is intended for network administrators
with experience installing, configuring, and maintaining network applications including Storage
Mirroring and Virtual Machine Manager.
Configuration
In this solution, Storage Mirroring is used to replicate and failover the Virtual Machine Manager server
to a Storage Mirroring target machine. After failover and a target reboot, the target is replaced with
the source, including its system state. In the event of a source failure, the Hyper-V servers are directed
to the target server. The Virtual Machine Manager server is then able to resume the management of
the Hyper-V servers.
Guidelines for using Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager with HP StorageWorks
Storage Mirroring 9