Option "Support clustering features such as Fault Tolerance" dimmed (unavailable)

[AHatting]

Hi,

For a customer we are trying to simulate a SQL failover using MSCS.

I found a lot of information about how to configure this, using only virtual machines.

However, for some reason, we can not select the option "support clustering features such as Fault Tolerance" , when trying to create the quorum disk in Vsphere. (See image)

We deployed 1 DC (W2K3 -x86) and 2 SQL 2005 servers on a W2k3 x64 environment.

We use ESX 3.5 and Vsphere 4.0

I'm fairly new to this configuration and i could not find any appropiate document, pointing in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

Armand

[a2alpha]

How many hosts do you have and where is your storage, local or shared?

Thanks

Dan

[AHatting]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your fast reply. I will post the details in the morning.

[AHatting]

Hi Dan,

Is this enough information? (att: image)

Armand

[a2alpha]

Hi Armand,

I take it from the attachment you only have the one host. Fault tolerance only works when you have two or more hosts and needs shared storage. What happens is the VM is running its memory and cpu on one host and has the commands mirrored across to a secondary VM running on a second host. In the event the first host fails, the second one is still there and takes control without downtime. This only works because both hosts can see the same storage and the VMs .vmdk file.

I think though that your second issue is that your host is still at version 3.5. This would need to be upgraded / reinstalled to version 4 to allow FT. That is more likely to be why it is greyed out.

Hope this helps,

Dan

[AHatting]

Hi Dan,

I have another 31 hosts available, so I will give the first option a try.

Upgrading / reinstalling is no option atm.

Thanks for your help!

Armand

[prakashraj]

Hi Armand,

FT is a new feature of ESX 4.0

At present FT is supported only on specific processors

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100802...

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Prakash

[a2alpha · Accepted solution]

Looking again at your attachment, the processor is on the supported list for FT, but upgrading to / having ESX 4 is also a requirement.

Its worth looking at the limitations of FT as well. The big one for us is that it currently only works on Virtual Machines with 1 vCPU and no more.

Good luck!

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/vmroyale/2009/05/18/vmware-fault-tolerance-requirements-and-limi...

[a2alpha]

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/vmroyale/2009/05/18/vmware-fault-tolerance-requirements-and-limi...