VMGroup with failover clusters - anyone using it successfully?

[mdiver]

Adding Hyper-V "VMGroups" to backup jobs has been available in VBR for a while.
https://horstmann.in/grouping-hyper-v-v ... eeam-jobs/

Is anyone using it successfully with failover clusters? Goal would be to have the have a VM remain in a backup job while being live migrated around the cluster nodes.

It does not seem to be possible. From my experience the whole concept - which is only available within PowerShell anyways - was implemented by Microsoft only half way or even less.

First of all, you have to create the group on every single node of the cluster always specifying the same ID. Otherwise those groups do not relate despite the identical name.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powers ... ver2019-ps

Then you end up with a group on every node and in addion one on the managing node inherited by the node underneath.
The clusters VMGroup would be the one you want to include into the job, as the others always only contain the VM as long as this very host is carrying it.

But even then, the cluster VMGroup only contains all your VMs of the cluster, once they have visited the cluster owning node at least once.
So before your VMs will be in their backup jobs they need to be live migrated criss-cross throughout your cluster. Useless in my opinion.

On top - removing VMs from groups is even more hazzle as they have to be present on a node to do it.

Any thoughts would be welcome. How do you federate your backup jobs in larger Hyper-V environments?

Thanks and regards,
Mike

[tomhps]

Hello Mdiver,

We use VMgroups for almost two years from now. It's working like a charm.

First, you need to set your ConfigStoreRootPath wich will store VMgroups for your nodes on a shared disk (CSV).
Link : https://www.veeam.com/kb2194

Code: Select all

Get-ClusterResource "Virtual Machine Cluster WMI" | Set-ClusterParameter -Name ConfigStoreRootPath -Value "C:\ClusterStorage\ConfigStoreRootPath\Hyper-V\Shared"

Then you can create your groups on one node, the configstore will make theme available on all nodes :

Code: Select all

New-VMGroup -ComputerName HV01.domain.lan -Name "Gold" -GroupType VMCollectionType
New-VMGroup -ComputerName HV01.domain.lan -Name "Platinum" -GroupType VMCollectionType

Finaly, on the node where the VM is started :

Code: Select all

$Vm = "mybigserver.domain.lan"
$VmGroup = "Gold"
Add-VMGroupMember -Name $VmGroup -VM (Get-VM $Vm)

After that, you can create a job using your VM groups.

[mdiver]

Hi Thomas.

Thanks for your explanation.
From the KB the ConfigStoreRootPath does not seem to be related to the VMGroups.
I assume this metadata is also part of it. Primarily it seems to be meant for W2016 clusters using shared disks in VMs.

I bit scary seems to be this note:
"Please note that this value can be set only once. After the value is set, it cannot be changed."

So if I understand you right: With this setting, the VM carries the group membership while being live migrated to all the other hosts though being included intitially into on only a single host.
Also the group only has to be generated on a single host?

Thanks,
Mike

[PeterStam]

Hi,
Make sure that the CSV owner that is used for the 'ConfigStoreRootPath' and the WMI Cluster Resource are on the same node. For me it failed with a 'Parameter cannot be set', Windows Server 2022 Core Datacenter Edition.

(Get-ClusterResource "Virtual Machine Cluster WMI").OwnerNode

Regards,
Peter

[emike09]

I just created a PS script to manage VM Groups in a cluster. Tested only on Server 2022. I'm not a PS script master, but I've tested it in my own environment as best I could. Worth giving it a try to see if it works for you.

Options are:
1. Add VM To Existing Group
2. Move VM to New Group
3. Remove VM from Group
4. List Virtual Machines
5. View Existing Group Membership
6. List VM Groups
7. Create VM Group
8. Delete VM Group
9. Rename VM Group

https://github.com/emike09/Hyper-V/blob ... groups.ps1

[mdiver]

Thanks a lot for sharing, @emike09!