http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/ToddMuirhead Some Stuff on Enterprise Virtualization from DellTechCenter Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:27:12 GMT Clearspace 1.10.12 (http://jivesoftware.com/products/clearspace/) 2008-08-19T18:27:12Z http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/ToddMuirhead/2008/08/19/poor-mans-failover-for-free-esxi During last week's chat the we discussed <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/08-12-2008+VMware+ESXi+Licensing+and+Features">ESXi licensing and features</a>. In the features portion of the discussion flakrat asked if it was possible to setup two <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3i_i/r35/vi3_35_25_3i_i_get_start.pdf">ESXi servers</a> with shared storage to be able to do a manual fail-over of a VM between the two servers. I was able to create this setup and confirm that it works. Read on for details.<br /> <br /> The setup that I used to test was two <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/Virtualization+Server+Decision+Matrix">PowerEdge R805</a> servers with ESXi <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/esxexpresspatches.html">Update 2 refresh</a> installed on the hard drive. This was the currently available "free" ESXi installable from VMware's web site. To install I used the Dell Remote Access Card (DRAC) virtual media capability to boot from the ESXi ISO I downloaded. I selected the local hard disk as the location to install and let it complete. Once installed, I used the ESXi configuration to set the password, IP, gateway, and hostname for each server. I then installed the Virtual Infrastructure client on a windows server and used that to manage each of the R805 servers individually.<br /> <br /> For shared storage I used a <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/The+Dell+PowerVault+MD3000i">PowerVault MD3000i</a> iSCSI storage array. I enabled the iSCSI software initiator on each server and discovered the the MD3000i. On server A, I created a VMFS partition and created a new VM called VMTest1. I installed Windows Server 2008 64-bit Enterprise Edition. After install completed I shutdown the VM on server A. I then went to server B and rescanned the storage adapters. It found the new VMFS partition on the shared iSCSI LUN. I created a VM using the same settings as I had on Server A including the same virutal hard disk file. I then boot the VM successfully. <br /> <br /> The most interesting part of this test was to verify that the cluster file system of VMFS was still working without Virtual Center in the picture. So with the VM still running on Server B, I tried to start it on Server A - and I got an error message that the file was in use by another server. This was great because it showed that it would not be possible to run the VM at the same time on both servers.<br /> <br /> We will chat more about this on today's chat - <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/08-19-2008+VMware+ESX+and+ESXi+Disucssion+Web+Chat">ESX and ESXi</a>.<br /> <br /> Todd delltechcenter failover fail-over esxi esx3i esx vmware md3000i iscsi r805 installable free Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:24:00 GMT ToddMuirhead http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/ToddMuirhead/2008/08/19/poor-mans-failover-for-free-esxi 2008-08-19T18:24:00Z 4 months, 3 weeks ago http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/ToddMuirhead/comment/poor-mans-failover-for-free-esxi http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/ToddMuirhead/feeds/comments?blogPostID=2091