Checklist: Configure Virtual Machines for High Availability

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can configure your virtual machines for high availability by using Hyper-V™. You can use Hyper-V and clustering to automate recovery from failures. In this case, the virtual machines fail over across the network on servers running Hyper-V in recovery sites. You use the High Availability Wizard to configure high availability.

This checklist shows the tasks that are required to configure virtual machines for high availability. For information about the tools you use to configure high availability, see the Failover Clusters Help. You can view local Help content by typing the following command at a command prompt: hh cluadmin.chm.

Task	References
Install Failover Clustering and the Hyper-V role on each physical server. You can use Server Manager to install both of these technologies.	For instructions about installing Failover Clustering, see "Install Failover Clustering" in Failover Clusters Help. For instructions about installing Hyper-V, see the deployment content for Hyper-V at the Windows Server 2008 TechCenter (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=108560).
Use the Create Cluster Wizard to create the failover cluster.	See "Checklist: Create a Failover Cluster" in Failover Clusters Help.
Use the New Virtual Machine Wizard to create the virtual machines. Note Make sure that you create the virtual machine in a new folder and choose a storage location that will be accessible to all the servers in the cluster.	For general instructions, see Create Virtual Machines [Longhorn]. For more information about configuring highly available virtual machines, see Configure a virtual machine for high availability.
Use the High Availability Wizard to make each virtual machine highly available.	See "Configure a Service or Application for High Availability" in Failover Clusters Help.