Back in the "olden days" of Windows Server 2008 R2, getting networking right for a Hyper-V private cloud was simple. Annoying - yes. But simple. Basically - you just had to have a separate network adapter (or two) for every class of traffic possible.
Thankfully with Windows Server 2012 (and 2012 R2) there are a number of ways to converge networking and you can now effectively run on only two of four network adapters. While this is nice - it does raise a problem: how do you make sure that everyone gets the network bandwidth that they need?
You see - the different classes of traffic in a Hyper-V private cloud have very different behaviors and requirements.
- Some are low bandwidth - but critical (like the cluster heart beat and remote management)
- Some are medium to high bandwidth - and fairly constant (like virtual machine storage)
- Some are high bandwidth - but sporadic (like live migration)
And making everything work smoothly can be challenging. Fortunately we have some great documentation that is available here:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj735302.aspx
This steps through some of the common converged network configuration that we see - and tells you how to configure QoS (quality of service) settings to ensure that the right thing happens in your environment.
Cheers,
Ben