Setting up Hyper-V Cluster Networks in Windows Server 2016

There is no single best recommendation on how many networks a Hyper-V host should have, and different factors such as storage type, Hyper-V features used and virtualization load. Networks and network adapters are important parts of each Hyper-V Cluster implementation. You cannot configure a cluster without configuring the networks that the cluster will use. A Hyper-V Cluster needs multiple types of communication between production networks, Hyper-V Hosts and storage system. When you deploy a Hyper-V cluster, you must plan for multiple types of network traffic. After you have completed a Hyper-V Cluster, cluster creates networks name as Cluster Network1, Cluster Network2, and Cluster Network3 and so on… You have to rename cluster network name as based on network traffic type as given below. Then configure network type recommended setting.

Hyper-V Network Traffic Type	Description
Management Network	Provides connectivity between Hyper-V Hosts and Active Directory, DNS and management traffic to our Management OS. Not recommended to use the same NIC for virtual machine access and cluster communication. Use VLAN for separate virtual machine traffic from the management network.
Cluster Network	Used for inter-node cluster communication such as the cluster heartbeat and Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) redirection.
Live migration	Used for virtual machines live migration between cluster nodes.
Storage Network	Used for SMB traffic or for iSCSI traffic, at least two network ports dedicated to the iSCSI network. If you are not using iSCSI or SMB3 storage communication, storage network (NIC) is not required. FC-HBA used for Fibre Channel SAN technology and Direct Attached Storage (DAS) use the special connector for storage communication.
Service Network (Virtual machine access)	Used for virtual machine connectivity. Typically requires external network connectivity to service client requests. Recommended to create a network team of NICs for higher network bandwidth.
Replica traffic	Used for virtual machine replication through the Hyper-V Replica feature.

The following table shows the recommended settings for each type of network traffic:

Network Type	Recommended Settings
Management Network	Both of the following: Allow cluster network communication on this network Allow clients to connect through this network
Cluster Network	Allow cluster network communication on this network. Note: Clear the Allow clients to connect through this network check box.
Live Migration Network	Allow cluster network communication on this network. Note: Clear the Allow clients to connect through this network check box.
Storage Network	Do not allow cluster network communication on this network
Service Network ( Virtual Machine)	Allow cluster network communication on this network
Replication Network Note: Because of the hardware limitation in my lab, I have not included Replication Network.	Both of the following: Allow cluster network communication on this network Allow clients to connect through this network

Management Network Settings:

• Allow cluster network communication on this network
• Allow clients to connect through this network
• 
  

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Cluster Network Settings:

• Allow cluster network communication on this network

Live Migration Network Settings:

• Allow cluster network communication on this network

Storage Network Settings:

• Do not allow cluster network communication on this network

Service Network Settings:

• Allow cluster network communication on this network.

Isolate traffic on the live migration network:

By default, live migration traffic uses the cluster network topology to discover available networks and to establish priority. However, you can manually configure live migration preferences to isolate live migration traffic to only the networks that you define. To do this, you can use Failover Cluster Manager or Windows PowerShell. To use Failover Cluster Manager, in the navigation tree, right-click Networks, and then click Live Migration Settings. Uncheck all the network except LiveMigration Network and click Up buttons to list LiveMigration Network in order from most preferred at the top.

 

Summary:

In the previous article, you had configure Implementing Failover Clustering with Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V. In this article, you have configure best practices on setting up Hyper-V Cluster Networks in Windows Server 2016 recommended network setting in Failover Cluster Manager. I hope this article helps network configuration setting for a Hyper-V failover Cluster in Windows Server 2016.