vSphere 6 FT with Serial Port Servers

[PaulC42]

We have a number of legacy windows based control systems running on Stratus Fault tolerant hardware and are evaluating obsolescence issues with the hardware platform and Operating System.  We are doing an initial evaluation of solutions which include vSphere 6 using Fault Tolerance.  Looking at the “Features and Devices Incompatible with Fault Tolerance” it lists “Serial or parallel ports”.

We are looking for clarification on this limitation, specifically if it is only physical ports on the host machine or any serial port even if it is accessed over an via a driver over an Ethernet network.  In our case serial ports are provide by a Comtrol DeviceMaster RTS 16 or 32 but there are many other vendors with similar solutions.

[MKguy]

We are looking for clarification on this limitation, specifically if it is only physical ports on the host machine or any serial port even if it is accessed over an via a driver over an Ethernet network.

This limitation only concerns VM virtual hardware devices, aka the ESXi serial port feature. Anything software-based you run inside the guest OS like an emulated serial port over the network is transparent to FT and of no concern to this limitation.

It should be quite clear in the context of all the other VM hardware settings-based limitations being enumerated in the documentation:

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-60-availab...

[PaulC42]

Thank you for the quick response and confirmation.   This was my understanding from the documentation and I just wanted to make sure before going any further.