VMotion VM's between HA/DR ClusterA and HA/DR ClusterB inside of single datacenter

[VirtualChief]

I am sure this question has been asked before but I have not been able to locate it. Can I VMotion VM's from HA/DR cluster to and different HA/DR cluster? As long as the HA/DR clusters are both inside of 1 Datacenter?

Client has 3 physical sites (about 60 miles apart) and I want to create 1 datacenter with the 3 physical sites as HA/DR clusters. Inside of each cluster with be at least 2 hosts running 5-10 VM's. They will be connected by T1 over the WAN. Is this possible "Best Practices" way to architect this solution??

Thanks

[Gabrie1]

Hi

Don't forget about the shared storage they need !!! And your question actually made me doubt if it is possible, although I do vmotions all the time, but our clusters have seperate storage. I think yes, vmotion between clusters is possible. If the T1 is fast enough for the vmotion is a different game. Think you have to try.

Gabrie

[BenConrad]

Interesting question, this is what I can tell you:

- Vmotion between cluster will work -if- you have the same SAN volume mounted on both clusters.

I'm not sure if it's possible to vmotion between clusters that are are separate networks, an way that you could test is to see if the vmkernal vmotion IP can talk to the other cluster is to use 'vmkping'. On the other hand, if you are only running a T1 (as opposed to Gb/s WAN) you are probably going to have a failed vmotion every time you try. At T1 speeds you will never even get through the original copy of the memory contents of the VM before a timeout happens.

Ben

[ThomasNederman]

In order to vmotion to work you need to make sure that both servers are identical in form of internal vswitches (same port group network available on both clusters) you also need to check that both clusters are running the same type of CPU (vmotion will not work between AMD->INTEL). It is recommended that you have gigabit Ethernet for vmotion to work since when a vmotion is performed you need to transfer the memory from server1 to server2. If huge changes of memory a slower connection would make vmotion take a very long time.

Thomas Nederman

http://www.thomasnederman.com

[psharpley]

You are not going to be able to VMotion without shared storage / low-latency. Consider using something like Vizioncore vReplicator for cluster to cluster protection against cluster failures (to some extent) or Double-Take. Both have eval options. Falconstor have a Virtual appliance (CDP) that may cover the loss of a cluster, but this is new and I've not tried this product yet. Untimately it depends on the amount of data change and the acceptable RPO/RTO (and how much money you have