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jahanzaib
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Active - Active V-Center 6.0 Design Infrastructure

How to make Active - Active V-Center environment? There are 5 Blades Servers in 3 Physical Chassis.

How 2 V-Centers will Syn in Active - Active design? Is there Primary & Secondary Vcenter Concept to active HA? How we can achieve HA availability at V-Center Level?

Do We need 2 V-Center Licenses for this purpose or only need 1 Primary V-Center License?    

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virtualDD
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The only way to achieve a "active-active" (well, sort of) design is by using vSphere Fault Tolerance.

Other than that with version 6.5 you will get "vCenter HA" but that is a active-passive design.

it all comes down to your use-case. is your vcenter server mission-critical to your environment? Does traditional HA not meet the requirement in case of hardware failure? (vCenter HA will take 5-10 minutes to take over in case of a failure too). The only way to have your vCenter not suffer from hardware outages is by using vSphere Fault Tolerance.

If you're looking for a solution to handle logical errors (like someone deleting half your inventory or something) you could always backup the database and then do a restore.

but as far as I know there is currently no way to have a active-active vCenter design.

GregPatria
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Hi,

It's just sharing experience. We have implemented active active DC with virtualization environment. Make a Single datacenter object and created across two Active-Active physical datacenters. So we have active - active storage cluster using VPLEX and vSphere Metro Storage Cluster contains a set of ESXi hosts running at both datacenters, built on the storage and network subsystems that span geographies, presented as a single and common base infrastructure set of resources at both sites. This vMSC is managed by a single vCenter Server instance that is located at the active DC 1, and protected by the vCenter Heartbeat, with the passive instance located at active DC 2.

jahanzaib
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Enthusiast

We don't have 2 Data Center. I need advise under Single Data Center environment. The purpose behind 2 Active-Active V-Center is to provide redundancy in case V Center goes down. If you have any solution for 2 V-Center Work as Active Active under single Data Center then please update.

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GregPatria
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VMware have a great Idea to maintain vCenter Server have High Availability. Maybe you are familiar with this feature, vCenter High Availability. a new feature introduced in vSphere 6.5 and exclusively available for the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA). When vCenter HA is enabled, a three-node vCenter Server cluster (Active, Passive, and Witness nodes) is deployed. This feature will help high availability on vCenter Server in addition to using Fault Tolerance solution. I recommend that you see workflow design.

The Basic walkthrough is available Product Walkthroughs

The Advanced walkthrough is available Product Walkthroughs

VCHA_transparent.png

thanks

jahanzaib
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Enthusiast

Hello,

You Said " This vMSC is managed by a single vCenter Server instance that is located at the active DC 1, and protected by the vCenter Heartbeat, with the passive instance located at active DC 2"

What VCenter version was running in that design? and How you achieve ACTIVE-ACTIVE at VCenter Level especially if you are not running VCenter 6.5?

Please clarify ?

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virtualDD
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Hi,

vCenter Heartbeat used to be a product offering from VMware. It is no longer available (I think you were able to use up to vSphere 5.0 but I'm not sure).

vCenter HA (Feature of vSphere 6.5, which was already being discussed here) is the official product replacement. However, vCenter Heartbeat and vCenter HA are not Active-Active Designs, they are active-passive. We might see a active-active vCenter HA feature in a future release but as of today VMware cannot synchronise the vPostgres database for active-active configurations.

Based on your use-case to have a redundant design. With vSphere HA your vCenter VM should be sufficiently protected from hardware failures. To protect against logical errors you should look into backing up your vCenter database on a regular basis.

If you are using the VCSA then there are multiple ways to achive this (one of which: Automating VCSA Backup & Restore – virtualfrog – daily virtual life ). If you are using Windows vCenter Server you should back up your SQL database regularly.

jahanzaib
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Enthusiast

I got it.

Further I am preparing implementation design for  a Scalable Vsphere Data Center Design: I need  professional Technical advice in this:

Hardware Description:

Total UCS 5108 Chassis 5 and Blades will be 40 ( 5 Chassis x 8 Blades B200-M4).

Vmware Licenses:

1: VMware vCenter Server 6 Standard for vSphere 6

2: VMware vSphere 6 Enterprise Plus ( All Features Available , FT,HA,V Motion, VDS etc)

Solution Plan:

1: VCenter Server should be on Separate cluster of Rack Mount Servers:

2: Its should be as VCSA 6.0 and Fault Tolerance will be apply.

3: I believe we can go for Embedded Platform for VCSA 6.0.

Lets confirm about this Design if experts have any better suggestion then please clarify.

Thanks,

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GregPatria
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Hi,

Yep, based on out discussion and virtualDD has been mention it, I am running on vCenter 5.5 that vCenter heartbeat still use to maintain connection between DC 1 and DC 2.

virtualDD
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So you will have 40 ESXi hosts running ESXi 6.0 Update 3 and spread across 5 UCS blade chassis.

Are you going to create one big cluster with 40 esxi hosts?

if you're going to build multiple clusters I'd suggest spreading them evenly across all 5 blade enclosures (this will help if one entire blade enclosure has a problem).

If you are going to create multiple clusters (like 8 clusters à 5 hosts, or 4 clusters à 10 hosts, etc.) why not use one of those clusters to run your vCenter server?

I know having a separate management cluster seems to be a trend, but it always depends on your infrastructure. If, for example you can only consume one type of storage (you haven't mentioned your storage solution) then it makes no sense to have even more hardware to run the management side of things. This only applies if you have a isolated environment (like a vSAN cluster for example).

If you don't have storage isolation I'd suggest either dedicating some blades for a management cluster or just run the VM on your cluster like a normal VM. (HA/FT will protect it from hardware failure, if you have a storage outage you have bigger problems than a vCenter server not running).

as far as vCenter choice: Yes, go for the VCSA (on 6.0 you'll sill need the VUM on a separate Windows machine) because it will save you a lot of headaches and is a lot easier to upgrade, backup, etc. Having the embedded version is also okay, especially if you're only going to have one vCenter server in that infrastructure.

jahanzaib
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Enthusiast

Which Cisco UCS Rack Mount Server is good to install NSX 6.3 and vCenter 6.5 Together? I will do Vcenter 6.5 as HA.

And how many Physical Servers should be there? What are the Spec like Core and RAM Required?

Thanks,

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jahanzaib
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How many Physical Servers Required to consider HA with 6.5?

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