Here's the scenario. I have a number of servers running ESXi 4 with vSphere set up for HA. All VMs are stored on shared storage somewhere, so nothing other than the ESXi install exists locally on the server. So when a server fails the HA stuff takes care of bringing the VMs up on the other servers.
My question is about the local server's storage. Is there anything important stored there? If the server's local storage has failed, or the server needs completely replacing, is it just a case of reinstalling ESXi from scratch?
Thanks for your help.
There's no local that can't be replaced, you would either fix the hardware and get the host back into the cluster or just rebuild. If you have Enterprise Plus, you can rely on host profiles and all you would need to do is get the host networked and any further customization can be handled by host profiles. You could also periodically backup your host configuration (not VMs) and if you have host crash but you're able to fix the hardware and needed to rebuild and apply the most recent backup you can do so with this script:
=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
There's no local that can't be replaced, you would either fix the hardware and get the host back into the cluster or just rebuild. If you have Enterprise Plus, you can rely on host profiles and all you would need to do is get the host networked and any further customization can be handled by host profiles. You could also periodically backup your host configuration (not VMs) and if you have host crash but you're able to fix the hardware and needed to rebuild and apply the most recent backup you can do so with this script:
=========================================================================
William Lam
VMware vExpert 2009
VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:
VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators
If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
Thank you, that answers my question. I don't have Enterprise Plus, so I'd still have to reconfigure the server (or restore from a backup - thanks for the info there). But the key thing is that there's nothing I can't regenerate, so I don't need to worry about making sure the server's local storage is redundant.
Thanks.