Load Balancing Virtual Machines

Bruce Mackenzie-Low
MASTER TECHNOLOGIST

Bruce.Mackenzie@q.com
 Module
Overview
Load balancing virtual machines
Controlling load balancing mode
Controlling aggressiveness of balancing
Load Balancing Virtual Machines

Identifies over committed nodes and

rebalances virtual machines
VMs are live migrated to idle nodes
with no down time
Honors existing failover policies:
 anti-affinity
 fault domains
 preferred owners
 possible owners
 Load Balancing Metrics

Load balancing (aka Node Fairness) evaluates a

node’s load based on:
 Current memory pressure
 CPU utilization over a 5 minute period

Load balancing is triggered when memory or CPU

utilization reaches a predefined threshold
 Controlling Load Balancing Mode
New Cluster property – AutoBalancerMode

AutoBalancerMode Behavior

0 Disabled

1 Load balance on node join

Load balance on node join and
2 (default)
every 30 minutes

Using PowerShell to configure:

(Get-Cluster).AutoBalancerMode = <value>
 Configuring
Load Balancing
Mode with
Failover Cluster
Manager
Demo

Demonstrate controlling load balancing

Controlling Aggressiveness of Load Balancing
New Cluster property – AutoBalancerLevel

AutoBalancerLevel Aggressiveness Behavior

Move when host is more
1 (default) Low
than 80% loaded
Move when host is more
2 Medium
than 70% loaded
Move when host is more
3 High
than 60% loaded
Using PowerShell to configure:
(Get-Cluster).AutoBalancerLevel = <value>
For more details:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/clustering/2016/04/29/failover-cluster-
node-fairness-in-windows-server-2016/
 Configuring
Load Balancing
Aggressiveness
with Failover
Cluster Manager
Demo
Demonstrate controlling aggressiveness
of load balancing
Summary Windows Server 2016 automatically load
balances virtual machines across the cluster
Control the load balancing mode and
aggressiveness
Customize load balancing settings with
Failover Cluster Manager or PowerShell