Let recall on current version of Hyper-V. If you would like to perform live migration (mean:- move a VM from one node to another node without causing any downtime), you’re require to setup Failover Cluster. You will not be able to move the VM from standalone server. To do so, you need to leverage on Export/Import.
We love Export/Import but there is downtime as you need to shutdown the VM and move it across.
How about perform move of Virtual Machine in a standalone Hyper-V Host and without shared storage? The most important is 0 downtime.
To achieve that, i have tested on Windows Server Developer Preview (Windows 8). Let me show you some screenshot during my testing:-
a) Move options
b) While VM is up and running. To prove 0 downtime, i have initiated continuous ping. You will notice an increase time during pinging. (indicate files transfer across)
Here it will take a while depend on how big the VHD of the Virtual machine. I waited patiently while VHD is transfer across. If you go to destination server, you will see the VHD size increase to indicate copying process. Original VHD is still intact on the source computer. Once copying process complete, the original VHD is disappear from the source server and VM is running on destination server.
c) Ping drop 1/2 to indicate arp table change and you have VM migrated to destination server with 0 downtime.
This was awesome feature on the next generation of Hyper-V.
