Q. Can I place virtual machines (VMs) in a multi-site cluster and perform quick and live migrations?
July 15, 2009
A. Yes, you can, but you probably won't get the results you want. With normal cluster resource groups, the IP address is part of the resource configuration, so you can have a different IP address for different subnets. With a VM, the IP address is part of the VM’s internal configuration in the guest OS’s network stack. There is, therefore, no an easy way for the VM to change IP address if you move it between subnets. If you use, DHCP depending on the guest OS, DHCP may see the VM as part of a different network and request a new IP address, but there would be varying levels of network connectivity loss.
Typically, you should use a Virtual LAN if you want VM failover between locations so that VM IP addresses can remain unchanged.
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