We have two Windows Server 2003 servers running Virtual Server assigned to the development team.
Currently they operate independently, or manually copying VHD file between the servers if they want to move things around.
We were supposed to be getting a SAN but that has been "delayed"
They still want redundancy and some balancing between the servers, without shelling out for the SAN or for an enterprise virtualization program.
Originally I thought of having an extra hard drive in each machine splitting them into two folders (Active & Backup), then allowing both servers to see each others hard drive using iSCSI over a Gigabit network.
Then it would simply be a case of distributing the virtual machines over the two Active folders which would allow both servers to run any virtual machine (although not at the same time obviously).
To provide redundancy the Active folder would be copied to the other server's Backup folder.
Unfortunately after looking into this a bit further Windows Server only comes with the iSCSI initiator and not the target software
Can anyone point me in the direction of an alternative method? I would assume trying to run a virtual machine over a windows share would give awful performance.
Currently they operate independently, or manually copying VHD file between the servers if they want to move things around.
We were supposed to be getting a SAN but that has been "delayed"

They still want redundancy and some balancing between the servers, without shelling out for the SAN or for an enterprise virtualization program.
Originally I thought of having an extra hard drive in each machine splitting them into two folders (Active & Backup), then allowing both servers to see each others hard drive using iSCSI over a Gigabit network.
Then it would simply be a case of distributing the virtual machines over the two Active folders which would allow both servers to run any virtual machine (although not at the same time obviously).
To provide redundancy the Active folder would be copied to the other server's Backup folder.
Unfortunately after looking into this a bit further Windows Server only comes with the iSCSI initiator and not the target software

Can anyone point me in the direction of an alternative method? I would assume trying to run a virtual machine over a windows share would give awful performance.
Last edited: