Experiences conversion program Neverfail Hearthbeat to VMware vCenter Hearthbeat

[RobMokkink]

I am curious if anyone has any experience with the conversion program, to switch from Neverfail Heartbeat to Vmware vCenter Hearthbeat?

[justinking]

Even though the technologies are the same, many changes were made to the VMware product and so to date there is no direct upgrade path. Please contact Neverfail support for assistance. You can also ping me if necessary as I work for Neverfail.

Justin King

Product Specialist - VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat

[RobMokkink]

Hi Justinking,

I forgot to update this thread.

We have contacted Neverfail and VMware for the upgrade path. And our next infra release will use vCenter Hearthbeat. (currently we still use Neverfail Hearthbeat)

You are correct that we have to reinstall vCenter heartheat, because there is no upgrade path.

I think i can manage the install of vCenter hearthbeat, we have used Neverfail hearthbeat for a year and a halve already :smileygrin:

[msalmon1]

Justin, I have a quick question for you. How complicated is it to setup a VM and install neverfail on it, and then have it replicate with a primary neverfail server.

Is there any data that needs to be moved from the primary to the VM that will be the secondary, prior to replication, or can you just setup the secondary and have it replaicate all data with the primary?

Thank you.

[justinking]

Dan, if you are a Neverfail customer, I would recommend you utilize the support site at extranet.neverfailgroup.com. This community is for the VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat product only. If you are meaning vCS Heartbeat then please state this instead of Neverfail. Sorry but it does get confusing when Neverfail is used, yes it is the underlying technology but sold and support as a VMware product.

In answer to your question, there is a little more work required than just pointing the replication at a new VM. we need to get the application and server identity cloned before replicating can commence.

The secondary server is always a clone of the primary (or active) server, this allows us to maintain application mirror and server identity, so to start the VM will either have to be cloned using a P2V utility like VMware Converter or a new VM consisting of a base Windows OS matching that of the primary (or active) server, have matching local drive letters and a second network connection configured on a seperate vlan/subnet to the applications subnet. This would allow the installation to either install onto the cloned server pair or create the cloned server. The cloning process will copy the application and server identity to the base VM. Once cloned, heartbeat will be then started and able to replicate the changes to the protected application data, logs registry and application configuration to maintain a real time copy on the cloned server.

hope that helps

Justin King

Product Specialist - VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat

[RobMokkink]

It's now the 2nd of november but still no new licenses.

Anyone else haveing the same expierence with the conversion program?