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dasabaja
Contributor
Contributor

No heartbeat datastores to select

Hi, guys. I'm testing HA on a cluster I've recently made. One host is a physical server and the other is a VM on my desktop. Both have ESXi 5.1 installed.

I've setup the HA cluster, added hosts...but failover doesn't work. I shut down the virtual host and VM on it won't restart on the live host. I'm going through a "what could be the issue" list and one of the things that stands out is the notification in the summary tab: The number of vSphere HA datastores for this host is 0 which is less then the required 2".

Now, I go to the HA cluster settings to select the datastores, but there are no datastores available to select...
I've seen some VMware tutorials for HA and the datastores are there in the demo, nothing special is said about it. I've included a printscreen. I'll inlcude whatever data you need (host configuration, HA settings etc.) - you name it.

Why am I not seeing the datastores and is this option vital for HA? (is it that failover doesn't work because of this)


Thanks.

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16 Replies
vMario156
Expert
Expert

Does your environment include a shared storage or just local disks at the ESXi hosts?

Regards,

Mario

Blog: http://vKnowledge.net
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dasabaja
Contributor
Contributor

I wasn't setting up shared datastores. I currently have normal datastores ie. local discs on the servers. (one host has 4 disks, the other 2).

Should I be looking into this shared storages?

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Definitely yes. Shared storage is a requirement for HA to work. Think about it. How would the surviving host be able to access a VM's virtual disk on a failed host's local storage? Smiley Wink

André

vMario156
Expert
Expert

And thats of course why you don´t see any datastore in the list for the datastore heartbeats Smiley Happy

Regards,

Mario

Blog: http://vKnowledge.net
dasabaja
Contributor
Contributor

Would creating a datastore cluster suffice? Or is there a different procedure to share a datastore? Maybe it's a silly question but I'm a total rookie atm.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

No need for a datastore cluster, shared storage (e.g. iSCSI or NFS) is sufficient. For a sample lab setup with iSCSI shared storage take a look at Building the Ultimate vSphere Lab

André

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depping
Leadership
Leadership

You need to set up a shared datastore. A datastore cluster is a grouping of multiple Shared Datastores. So I suggest you either get a cheap NAS/iSCSI device or download one of the many NAS/iSCSI virtual appliances out there that will allow you to create a shared datastore. Without that vSphere HA will not work.

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dasabaja
Contributor
Contributor

Seeing that HA is not available in Essentials Kit we currently have, we should first upgrade to Essentials Plus?
We do not have external SAN or any type of shared storage. Does the vStorage virtual appliance (part of Essentials Plus) compensate the lack of physical SAN i.e. can that applliance simulate a SAN and provide HA using the two physical hosts we currently have?

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depping
Leadership
Leadership

dasabaja wrote:

Seeing that HA is not available in Essentials Kit we currently have, we should first upgrade to Essentials Plus?
We do not have external SAN or any type of shared storage. Does the vStorage virtual appliance (part of Essentials Plus) compensate the lack of physical SAN i.e. can that applliance simulate a SAN and provide HA using the two physical hosts we currently have?

Correct, the vSphere Storage Appliance should be able to help you with this. The vSphere Storage Appliance is a solution that allows you to use "local disks" to your hosts and offer that up as a shared datastore. Do note that when you are using 2 hosts you will lose 50% of your storage straight away due to mirroring of data. And that doesn't include the RAID you have applied to the disk configuration.

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dasabaja
Contributor
Contributor

But 2 host configuration is possible for HA to work? It's not mandatory to have 3?

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Peet01
Contributor
Contributor

Two will indeed work.

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depping
Leadership
Leadership

dasabaja wrote:

But 2 host configuration is possible for HA to work? It's not mandatory to have 3?

Two hosts is the minimum, three is what I prefer Smiley Happy

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uwish
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Below find what the license entitles you...

Product: VMware vSphere 5 Essentials Plus Licensed for 1 physical CPUs (unlimited cores per CPU)

License Key:

Expires: Never

Product Features:

    Up to 8-way virtual SMP

    vCenter agent for VMware host

    vShield Zones

    vShield Endpoint

    vSphere Replication

    vSphere API

    Storage APIs

    VMsafe

    vSphere HA

    vSphere Data Protection

    vSphere vMotion

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cypherx
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Hi I have a NFS data stores and 2 hosts.  Both hosts can see the datastores.  So why don’t any show to select?

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depping
Leadership
Leadership

Please start a separate topic with screenshots etc, this thread is over 7 years old.

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cypherx
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Then get google to stop linking to things like this in search!

 

Anyway, resolved.

One server couldn’t see storage.  Could ping it but if you set the mtu higher than 1472 vmkping failed.  Enabled jumbo frames on switch ports facing servers and storage and problem immediately solved itself.

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