Failover/redunancy prerequisites for Hyper-V2008 1

[nogarap]

My work have let me spend some money on an HP MSA50 storage array, and a 2008R2 license, so I can install Hyper-V, and start to virtualise our servers (mostly 2003 standard, R1).
I specced the whole thing to keep costs down wherever possible. Now they say they have some more money, but I really have to spend it today. Very mixed feelings on my part about the timing.
My qustion, which I hope somebody knows off the top of their head is:
What do I need to implement the failover features of Hyper-V.
My base server is a HP DL360 G5, running Server 2008R2. I'll be using an HP MSA50 drive array. I have one DL360 to play with right now, but more will become available as I virtualise. The plan is to install just Hyper-V 2008R2 onto the baremetal on the second server.
I'm thinking I'll need:
More RAM for the second server
Card, cables to connect the second server to the MSA50 array.
I have SCVMM 2008R2 enterprise.
Most important question: will this work?
Will 2008R2 standard be Ok for this, or do I need enterprise to do this type of thing?
Is there any other hardware I'll be needing?

Many many thanks in advance.
Season's greetings and Happy New Year to all the contributors and browsers.
Gaz

 

[nogarap]

Answering my own post here! I could have found this out with 5 mins googling! Anyway, the quick answer is no. For failover, the servers need to be clustered, so need identical hardware, 2008R2 Enterprise licenses, and additonal NICs. Have to wait for next year for all of these then probably.
MS documentation on this:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc732181(WS.10).aspx

Cheers
Gaz

 

[kmcferrin]

Answering my own post here! I could have found this out with 5 mins googling! Anyway, the quick answer is no. For failover, the servers need to be clustered, so need identical hardware, 2008R2 Enterprise licenses, and additonal NICs. Have to wait for next year for all of these then probably.

That's not exactly true. In general, you must have Enterprise edition for failover clustering to be used. However, the standalone version of Hyper-V (Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, as opposed to Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V) includes failover clustering (and live migration) capability for free. You still should have identical hardware and multiple NICs (the minimum recommendation is one NIC for the management interface, one NIC for the cluster heartbeat, and one NIC for the VM guests).

The big question that I have is in regards to the MSA50. In order for failover clustering to work you need to have shared storage, and I can't tell from the MSA50 specs whether you can connect more than one server to the array. If you cannot then the MSA50 won't work for shared storage unless you connect it to a third server and run some sort of iSCSI target software on that third server (StarWind, LeftHand, Windows Storage Server, etc).

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

 

[nogarap]

Hi kmcferrin,

Thanks for the reply which looks pretty authoritative and the definitive answer on this. Apologies for the tardiness, had a late start to the year, and trying to catch up since then.
Cheers
Gaz