Virtualised vCenter Server - Fault Tolerance - Running SQL Server 2005 locally?

[Cl3gh0rn]

Im considering the pros and cons on having a virtualised vCenter Server 4.0, running SQL Server 2005 locally and doing FT.

I like the idea but am slightly concerned about the secondary CPU, Memory and Log Bandwidth for FT if running SQLServer.

I know its best practice to use a distributed SQL Server but I do like the idea of having 1 box with everything on it. A clone would be made prior to the FT for cold standby.

This is for a production environment with roughly the following sizing:

Number of hosts: 100

Number of virtual machines: 700

Number of clusters: 5

Number of resource pools: 50

Number of Datastores: 10

Number of Datacenters: 2

What are your feelings and experiences of virtualised vCenter Servers using FT. And what do you think about localising the SQL instance?

[marcelo_soares]

You will not be able to run an FT VM with 2 vCPUs, is one of the limitations of FT actually.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

[Cl3gh0rn]

What do you think about running your vCenter Server with SQL Standard locally installed and using FT (x1 vCPU) with a cold standby (Clone) in a Production environment?

VSP, VTSP, VCP

[Troy_Clavell]

minimum requirements are 2 CPU's

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_esx_vc_installation_guide.pdf

Plus, why have FT on your vCenter instance? Why not get some redundancy for your SQL instance. That is really all the needs to be protected. What are you really losing if your vCenter Host Server goes down? DRS, yes, but that is pretty much it.

You can rebuild a VM in 20 minutes and connect back to your DB and be back up and running.

I would spend the time in DB redundancy rather then FT

....or look maybe look at VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat

[AndreTheGiant]

As written before the minimum requirement is 2 vCPU (although somebody has a running vCenter with only 1 vCPU).

For other solutions see also:

Andre