NetApp Storage Best Practices for Microsoft Virtualization, also known as TR-3702, has been updated for the release of Hyper-V R2 and SCVMM 2008 R2.

In addition to updating the old sections to match the new technology, we have also added new sections covering the following areas:

• Hyper-V Server Networking Considerations
• Hyper-V Cluster Networking Considerations
• Hyper-V Server Storage Provisioning
• Virtual Machine Storage Provisioning
• NetApp FlexClones and Snapshot technology
• Backup and Recovery
• Disaster Recovery and High Availability

 All in all, about 50-60 additional pages were added over the previous version, now containing not just best practices, but additional content provided to educate the reader on how and why we established some of our best practices. I have received lots of great feedback on this document so far, mostly because it’s packed with everything that folks have been asking for to help them with their Hyper-V deployments. The only gaps that exist (in my opinion) cover Storage Layout Recommendations and MetroCluster. I have started a blog series on NetApp Storage Layout for Hyper-V and my team recently released a new Solutions Guide for Microsoft Applications virtualized using Hyper-V and deployed for High Availability with NetApp MetroCluster (TR-3804), which one of my team members blogged about recently here. Many of the recommendations provided in the blog series on Storage Layout, as well as findings from our work on the Solutions Guide and Reference Architectures using Hyper-V and MetroCluster, will be incorporated into the next version of TR-3702 (v3.1) due out sometime February 2010.

But that’s not all – TR-3702’s sibling document, the NetApp Implementation Guide for Microsoft Virtualization (TR-3733), has been updated as well. 

While TR-3702 is focused on just providing guidelines and best practices for integrated architectures and implementations of Microsoft® Hyper-V with NetApp® storage solutions, TR-3733 is focused on providing step-by-step guidance on deploying Microsoft® Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) with NetApp® storage solutions. Therefore, we have included not just step-by-step directions, but screen shots as well on many of the processes to assist newcomers to NetApp, Hyper-V, and SCVMM with deploying an integrated solution. All of the step-by-step guidance follows the best practices established in TR-3702 and most of the best practices are represented. There are some gaps, but I am working to cover those in upcoming blog posts for the month of December, as well as working them into the next version of TR-3733 (v3.1), which should be published in February sometime.