HA Cluster: VM and Application Monitoring

[mobcdi]

I'm interesting in knowing more about the Application Monitoring feature available in HA clusters but can't find a list of applications that support it or are supported by it.

Is there such a resource or is it more a feature that enables other vSphere/vCenter products to work if I was to purchase them?

[chriswahl]

Symantec has a product that might be what you're looking for called ApplicationHA. I have not used it, but here is a link to more details.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vsp4-virtualize-biz-critical-apps.pdf

[mobcdi]

Seems to be limited to vm's running

64Bit RHEL, Windows 2003,2008,2008R2 and a handful of applications

I thought the feature might have a wider selection of suppliers or supported GuestOSs and applications

[DSTAVERT]

From personal experience the built in Virtual Machine HA monitoring takes some adjusting to find a level where VMs aren't restarted due to a weekly or monthly process that consumes more resources than normal. I had several alarms go off in the middle of the night before I understood the cause but once you get is set it can restart a VM that has stopped responding normally.

[mobcdi]

Do you mind saying what GuestOS's & Applications you were able to monitor using it?

[DSTAVERT]

My environment is almost entirely Linux so not much help for Windows. I have a couple of Windows servers that I do monitor but not at the applications level.

I would set it up and test. It is the only way you will get any really meaningful information and how well it might work for you.

I just went through the Symantec pdf posted by Chris. Looks very interesting and includes Linux.

[mobcdi]

Thanks DSTAVERT & chriswah00

Will give it a try if I can free up some time, have a mix of centOS and windows and am interested to see if can monitor a number of processes on each and have it integrate with vCenter

Thanks again to all for for replying