Easily configuring highly available VM's with VMM 2008

SCVMM 2008 provides a seamless experience for creating and managing HA VMs. Here are some of the highlights:

• SCVMM 2008 is Windows 2008 Cluster "aware".
  • When you add a host that belongs to a windows cluster, it will automatically bring in the rest of the nodes in the cluster.
  • Many SCVMM cmdlets have cluster specific parameters or switch, so that you can define how SCVMM should take actions according to the HA attribute of the target VM/host.
  • When the HA VM moves, VMM keep track of the VM's and their hosting physical cluster node.
• SCVMM 2008 supports both Windows Cluster Quick Migration as well as the VMotion from VMware.
• When you decide to move a HA VM, the intelligent placement takes HA hosts into consideration and will recommend clustered hosts by default.
• SCVMM 2008 provides VERY SIMPLE, single-checkbox process to create a HA VM:
  • If you have tried the white paper for configuring a HA VM on Windows 2003 cluster, you know the 37 page long manual steps you have to go through to make it work.
  • Now in SCVMM 2008, all you need to do is to check a single checkbox, if you need a HA VM.
• SCVMM 2008 offers "Promotion" feature, where you can "Promote" a non-HA VM to a clustered host and make it a HA VM; and it also offers "Demotion" feature, where you can "Demote" a HA VM to a non-clustered host and make it a non-HA VM.
• SCVMM 2008 introduces the new PRO feature that allows auto-migration option when user-defined threshold is reached. This is particularly useful for HA VMs.