Windows Hyper-V Cluster

Introduction

In virtual infrastructures, especially in large data centers, ensuring high availability and eliminating single points of failure is crucial. Microsoft addresses this need with Failover Clustering technology, which can be implemented in a Hyper-V environment. This allows multiple Hyper-V hosts or nodes to take over the workload if one host fails, ensuring service continuity.

Although Hyper-V primarily manages resources at the physical machine level, Microsoft Failover Clustering provides protection for virtual machines by minimizing downtime during failures. Failover Clustering operates alongside Hyper-V, offering enhanced resilience. It uses its dedicated Failover Cluster Manager for administration, allowing streamlined management of clustered nodes and ensuring virtual machine availability in the event of host failure.

Key Use cases

Discovery Use cases

• It discovers the Windows Hyper-V Cluster components.
• Publishes relationships between resources to have a topological view and ease of maintenance.

Monitoring Use cases

• Provides metrics related to job scheduling time and status etc.
• Concern alerts will be generated for each metric to notify the administrator regarding the issue with the resource.

Supported Target Versions

Prerequisites

• OpsRamp Classic Gateway 14.0.0 and above.

• OpsRamp NextGen Gateway 14.0.0 and above.
  Note: OpsRamp recommends using the latest Gateway version for full coverage of recent bug fixes, enhancements, etc..

• Powershell cmdlets have the following prerequisites:

  • Windows domain User should be able to do powershell remoting
    Enable-PSRemoting -Force
  • Windows domain user should be added to “Remote Management users” group
    net localgroup “Remote Management Users” /add < user >
  • Windows domain user should be added to “Performance monitor users” group
    net localgroup “Performance monitor users” /add < user >
  • Add OpsrampGatewayIp to the TrustedHosts list on the target machine to allow the powershell connection from gateway to the target machine.
    • To add TrustedHosts use the following command:
    • To allow any host:
      Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Force -Value *
    • To allow a specific host: Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Force -Concatenate -Value <OpsRampGatewayIp>
    • Setup and restart the WinRM service for the changes to reflect
      • To set up: Set-Service WinRM -StartMode Automatic
      • Restart using: Restart-Service -Force WinRM

• Granting Remote DCOM Rights

  • To grant users DCOM rights, log on to each monitored system and complete the following procedure:
    • Go to command prompt and enter dcomcnfg
    • Navigate to component services > computers > My computer and then right click and select Properties. Then go to the COM Security tab.
    • Under Access Permissions, go to edit limits and add the domain non-admin user and enable both local and remote access then click OK.
    • In Launch and Activation permissions, go to edit limits, add the domain non-admin user and check all boxes, and click OK.

• Granting Remote WMI Rights

  • To give the user remote WMI rights, log on to each system to be monitored and complete the following procedure:
    • Go to computer management, under Services and Applications select WMI Control.
    • Right-click WMI control and go to Properties. Select the Security tab.
    • Select root and click Security.
    • Add the domain non-admin user, and check the boxes for execute methods, enable account, remote enable, and reas security.
    • Click Advanced, select added non-admin domain user and click Edit. Then for Applies, select namespace and sub namespaces in the dropdown.
    • Click OK three times .

• For monitoring services like windows cluster service, windows domain users to be a part of Local Administrators group we are using win32_Service class for fetching the details.

  • refer to below link:
    Get-WmiObject
  • If you do not want to add the user to local administrator group, you can use Security descriptors for monitoring the services.
  • For that we have to do the configuration as below:
    Refer to Windows failover cluster monitoring.

• Windows domain user should be granted read-only access to cluster
  Grant-ClusterAccess -User <domain\user> -Readonly

• Open ports and add user in all nodes and cluster

  • Opsramp gateway should be able to access cluster and nodes.
  • Ports to be opened are 5985 and 5986.
    Note: By default, WS-Man and PowerShell remoting use port 5985 and 5986 for connections over HTTP and HTTPS, users should be present in nodes and cluster.

Hierarchy of Windows Hyper-V Cluster

For Windows Hyper-V Cluster, Hierarchy is as follows
• Windows HyperV Cluster
  • Windows HyperV Server
    • Windows HyperV Virtual Switch
    • Windows HyperV Host Disk
    • Windows HyperV Guest VM
  • Windows HyperV Cluster Role
  • Windows HyperV Cluster Shared Volume
  • Windows HyperV Cluster Disk
For Windows Hyper-V Standalone Server, Hierarchy is as follows
• Windows HyperV Server
  • Windows HyperV Virtual Switch
  • Windows HyperV Host Disk
  • Windows HyperV Guest VM

Supported Metrics

Default Monitoring Configurations

Windows-hyper v-cluster has default Global Device Management Policies, Global Templates, Global Monitors and Global Metrics in OpsRamp. You can customize these default monitoring configurations as per your business use cases by cloning respective Global Templates and Global Device Management Policies. We recommend doing this activity before installing the application to avoid noise alerts and data.

1. Default Global Device Management Policies

   You can find the Device Management Policy for each Native Type at Setup > Resources > Device Management Policies. Search with suggested name in global scope. Each Device Management Policy follows below naming convention:

   {appName nativeType - version - Mode}

   Ex: windows-hyperv-cluster Windows HyperV Cluster - 1 - Cluster(i.e, appName = windows-hyperv-cluster, nativeType =Windows HyperV Cluster, version = 1, Mode = Cluster)

2. Default Global Templates

   You can find the Global Templates for each Native Type at Setup > Monitoring > Templates. Search with suggested names in global scope. Each template follows below naming convention:

   {appName Mode nativeType 'Template' - version}

   Ex: windows-hyperv-cluster Cluster Windows HyperV Cluster Template - 1 (i.e, appName = windows-hyperv-cluster , nativeType = Windows HyperV Cluster, version = 1, Mode = Cluster)

3. Default Global Monitors

   You can find the Global Monitors for each Native Type at Setup > Monitoring > Monitors. Search with suggested name in global scope. Each Monitors follows below naming convention:

   {monitorKey appName nativeType - version}

   Ex: Windows HyperV Cluster Monitor windows-hyperv-cluster Windows HyperV Cluster 1 (i.e, monitorKey = Windows HyperV Cluster Monitor, appName = windows-hyperv-cluster , nativeType = Windows HyperV Cluster , version= 1)

Configure and Install the Windows HyperV Cluster Integration

1. To select your client, navigate to All Clients, and click the Client/Partner dropdown menu.
   Note: You may either type your client’s name in the search bar or select your client from the list.
2. Navigate to Setup > Account. The Account Details screen is displayed.
3. Click Integrations. The Installed Integrations screen is displayed with all the installed applications.
   Note: If you do not have any installed applications, you will be navigated to the Available Integrations and Apps page with all the available applications along with the newly created application with the version.
4. Click + ADD on the Installed Integrations page. Note: Search for the integration either by entering the name of the integration in the search bar or by selecting the category of the integration from the All Categories dropdown list.
5. Click ADD in the Windows HyperV Cluster application.
6. In the Configuration page, click + ADD. The Add Configuration page appears.
7. Enter the following BASIC INFORMATION:

8. CUSTOM ATTRIBUTES: Custom attributes are the user-defined data fields or properties that can be added to the preexisting attributes to configure the integration.

Note: The custom attribute that you add here will be assigned to all the resources that are created by the integration. You can add a maximum of five custom attributes (key and value pair).

9. In the RESOURCE TYPE section, select:
   • ALL: All the existing and future resources will be discovered.
   • SELECT: You can select one or multiple resources to be discovered.
10. In the DISCOVERY SCHEDULE section, select recurrence pattern to add one of the following patterns:
    • Minutes
    • Hourly
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • Monthly
11. Click ADD.

13. Now the configuration is saved and displayed on the configurations page after you save it. From the same page, you may Edit and Remove the created configuration..
14. Click NEXT.
15. In the Installation page, select an existing registered profile, and click FINISH.

The application is now installed and displayed on the Installed Integration page. Use the search field to find the installed application.

Modify the Configuration

• See Modify an Installed Integration or Application article.

  Note: Select the Windows HyperV Cluster application.

View the Windows HyperV Cluster Details

1. Navigate to Infrastructure > Search > Virtualization > Windows HyperV Cluster. The Windows HyperV Cluster page is displayed.
2. Select the application on the Windows HyperV Cluster page
3. The RESOURCE page appears from the right.
4. Click the ellipsis (…) on the top right and select View Details.

5. Navigate to the Attributes tab to view the discovery details.

View resource metrics

To confirm Windows HyperV Cluster monitoring, review the following:

• Metric graphs: A graph is plotted for each metric that is enabled in the configuration.
• Alerts: Alerts are generated for metrics that are configured as defined for integration.

6. Click the Metrics tab to view the metric details for Windows HyperV Cluster.

Risks, Limitations & Assumptions

• The integration can manage critical/recovery failure alerts for the following two scenarios when the user activates App Failure Notifications in the settings:
  • Connectivity Exception
  • Authentication Exception
• Application will not send any duplicate/repeat failure alert notification until the already existing critical alert is recovered.
• Using metrics for monitoring the resources and generating alerts when the threshold values are breached.
• Application cannot control monitoring pause/resume actions based on above alerts.
• This application supports both Classic Gateway and NextGen Gateway.
• Not supported with Cluster Gateway.
• No support of showing activity logs.
• The Template Applied Time will only be displayed if the collector profile (Classic and NextGen Gateway) is version 18.1.0 or higher.
• For a Windows HyperV cluster, If Standalone Mode is selected part of configuration, only Windows HyperV Server will get created/updated. Windows HyperV Cluster wont be discovered and will get deleted if already exists.
• Latest snapshot metric support from gateway version 14.0.0.
• Component level thresholds can be configured on each resource level.

Troubleshooting

Before troubleshooting, ensure that all Windows HyperV Cluster prerequisites are met.

If the Windows HyperV Cluster integration fails to Discover or Monitor, try the following troubleshooting steps:

• Check if any alerts have been generated on the cluster or gateway, or if there are any error logs in vprobe.
• If an error or alert is related to the End Device Connectivity or Authentication issue, try to establish connection with the end device from a gateway using below power shell command:
  • In the case of a NextGen gateway, first connect to native bridge container using {kubectl exec -it nextgen-gw-0 -c nativebridge -- /bin/bash} and then run below commands. For classic gateway directly run below commands.
  • Launch power shell using the {pwsh} command.
  • Run the following commands to establish connection, using the details of your end device.
    • {$pw = convertto-securestring -AsPlainText -Force -String "<password>"}
    • {$cred = new-object -typename System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentlist "<username>", $pw}
    • {$session = new-pssession -computername "<ipAddress>" -credential $cred -Authentication Negotiate -ErrorAction Stop}
    • {session.state} Note: The session state should be open.
  • If the session is not establishing, cross check that all of the prerequisites are met on all servers and clusters.
  • If the session does establish, check if the failover modile is installed on all servers and clusters with the following commands:
    • If the cluster is set up, run {get-cluster | Select-Object name, id, domain, sharedvolumesroot, description} in the cluster and all nodes. - If the cluster is not set up, run {get-disk | select FriendlyName, UniqueId, Manufacturer, Model, NumberOfPartitions, ProvisioningType, PartitionStyle, DiskNumber, Size} in the server.
  • If the previous commands fail, run the below commands to install a failover module.
    • {Install-WindowsFeature -name FailOver-Clustering -IncludeManagementTools}
    • {Import-module failovercluster}

To validate new powershell scripts, use the following steps:

• In the case of a NextGen gateway, first connect to a native bridge container using {kubectl exec -it nextgen-gw-0 -c nativebridge -- /bin/bash}, and then run below commands. For a classic gateway, directly run below commands.
  • Execute the command {"cat > <new script file name>”}. Copy the content of the script with the required changes and paste in the command.
  • Exit the cat command using {Ctrl + Z}
  • Execute the script using the command {pwsh -File <script file name> <host ip> <username> <base64 encoded password> 0}

To validate script changes for existing script files, use the following steps:

• In the case of a NextGen gateway, first connect to a native bridge using {kubectl exec -it nextgen-gw-0 -c nativebridge -- /bin/bash}, then proceed to the next steps. If using a classic gateway, proceed directly to the next steps.
  • Navigate to the path, cd /opt/gateway/content/scripts/windows-hyperv-cluster.
  • Get a backup of the file using the command, {cp <script file name to be modifed> <backup file name>}.
  • Execute the command {cat ><script file name>}. For the script file name, copy and paste the content of the script with the required changes.
  • Exit the cat command using {Crtl + Z}.
  • Check the last modified time for the script file using the command {ll}. The last modified time should be the current time.
  • Execute the script using the command {pwsh -File <script file name> <host ip> <username> <base64 encoded password> 0}.
  • If the script is responding, restart the POD using the appropriate command:
    • If using a Next Gen gateway, use {kubectl delete pod nextgen-gw-0}
    • If using a classic gateway, use {service vprobe restart}

Version History