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7 Replies Last post: Nov 5, 2009 4:07 AM by sunilhaste  

Server 2008 Clustering in ESX 3.5 Update 3 posted: Dec 3, 2008 8:40 AM

Click to view Gordon Freeman's profile Novice 7 posts since
Sep 30, 2008

I see from the Update 3 release notes that Server 2008 clustering is not yet supported. We have a development environment that we would like build 2008 clusters in for testing purposes (not production). Also, our dev farm is boot-from-SAN. Has anyone been able to get 2008 clustering to work?

As an alternative, would VMware server work for this? We are trying to avoid the cost of physical boxes and shared storage for testing 2008 clustering. Again, this will not be a production workload. Thanks in advance.

They're waiting for you, Gordon... in the test chamber....

Click to view jayolsen's profile Master 547 posts since
Jul 31, 2006
We are doing it in development, ESX update 2 not 3. Windows 2008 64bit two server cluster. Seems to work although we can't vmotion either guest.
Click to view Rhodan's profile Novice 8 posts since
Oct 22, 2004

Could you point out where in the release notes that it says it's not supported, as I just did a search on the release notes page and couldn't find anything.

Thanks

Click to view notorious_bdg's profile Hot Shot 69 posts since
Feb 2, 2006
Shared disk Windows 2008 clusters will not work on ESX 3 because the emulated lsiscsi controller does not support SCSI 3 Persistent Reservations. The only option at this point is to install an iSCSI initiator within the guest.
Click to view king@it.ibm.com's profile Virtuoso 2,927 posts since
Jan 16, 2004
Does this also apply to the cluster in a box setup (i.e. the 2 x cluster nodes run on the same ESX host)?

I know I could search this on my own but I am lazy today and you seem to be on top of it....

Thanks.

Massimo.
Click to view apatel1's profile Hot Shot 82 posts since
Apr 25, 2006

I've gotten a 64-bit 2008 Enterprise cluster configured successfully on Update 3, with Microsoft iSCSI-connected volumes as shared disk (only the boot drives of the VMs are on VMFS, also on a SAN-based datastore). Haven't had any issues at all, even when VMotioning the cluster node VMs (which are given 8 GB of RAM a piece) during periods of reasonably heavy I/O.

Hope that helps! Please help me out by marking my response as "helpful" or "correct" if you feel that it was useful!

-Amit


Re: Server 2008 Clustering in ESX 3.5 Update 3

7. Nov 5, 2009 4:07 AM in response to: apatel1
Click to view sunilhaste's profile Novice 3 posts since
Oct 28, 2009
Hi Amit,
Will you be able to give me guidance as to how you did this. I am a novice in this area and I have to do exactly what you have done. any help in this regard or any pointer will be very helpful indeed.

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