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How to View and Modify the Properties of a Host Cluster

  • Article
  • 04/29/2011

Applies To: Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1

Use the Host Cluster Properties dialog box to monitor the status of cluster nodes and the virtual machines in each resource group, set the cluster reserve for the cluster, and enable Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) for the cluster.

How to view and modify the properties of a host cluster

  1. In Hosts view, in the navigation pane, select the host cluster node.

  2. In the Actions pane, under Host Cluster, click Properties.

  3. View and modify the properties of the host cluster by using the information in the following table.

Tab Options

General tab

View the status of the cluster, and adjust the cluster reserve.

  • In the Cluster reserve field, specify the maximum number of node failures the cluster must be able to sustain but still keep all existing virtual machines running. If the rule is violated, the host cluster is marked Overcommitted.

    For example, if you specify a cluster reserve of 2 for an 8-node cluster, the rule is applied in the following ways:

    • If all 8 nodes of the cluster are functioning, the host cluster is marked Overcommitted if any combination of 6 nodes (8-2) in the cluster lacks the capacity to accommodate existing virtual machines.

    • If only 5 nodes in the cluster are functioning, the cluster is marked Overcommitted if any combination of 3 (5-2) nodes in the cluster lacks the capacity to accommodate existing virtual machines.

    When the cluster reserve value is changed, a cluster check is run on the cluster and the cluster's status is refreshed.

PRO tab

Enable and configure Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) for the host cluster:

  1. Select the Enable PRO on this host cluster check box.

  2. To determine which PRO tips will be received for this cluster, select the severity level: Critical Only or Warning and Critical.

    You can have VMM automatically implement PRO tips—for example, VMM might automatically migrate a virtual machine to a different cluster node when either host performance or virtual machine performance falls below a certain threshold—or you can choose to implement the PRO tips manually from the PRO Tips window. Some PRO tips require manual implementation.

  3. If you want to automatically implement PRO tips for the cluster:

    1. Select the Automatically implement PRO tips on this host cluster check box.

    2. Select the severity of PRO tips to automatically implement for the cluster: Critical Only or Warning and Critical.

Notice that you can choose to monitor both Warning and Critical PRO tips, but choose to automatically implement only Critical PRO tips.

Networks tab

View a list of common virtual networks, which have the same name on all nodes of the host cluster, and the locations of the networks. To avoid the loss of network connectivity when a virtual machine is migrated within a cluster, configure only common virtual networks on your highly available virtual machines.

Important

In VMM 2008, virtual networks are recognized as common virtual networks only if the cases of all letters in the network names match. This restriction was removed in VMV 2008 R2. When it identifies common virtual networks, VMM 2008 R2 does not evaluate the case of the letters in the network names.

Storage tab

View a list of volumes that are available in shared storage for the cluster. Find out how much space is available on each volume.

You must configure the shared storage outside VMM. For information about specific SAN configuration requirements for VMM, see Configuring a SAN Environment for VMM 2008 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125953). For general information about storage requirements for failover clusters in Windows Server 2008, see Add Storage to a Failover Cluster (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128068).

Note

PRO configuration changes do not take effect for several minutes while VMM updates the memberships of certain Operations Manager groups and then forwards the changes to the Operations Manager agents.

Additional Resources