mscs with virtual compatibility rdm

[tdubb123]

can i do mscs with an rdm that is in virtual compatibility mode across esxi hosts?

[sparrowangelste]

Sure I think that should work fine

[a_p_]

Although possible, it's not recommended.

from http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-mscs-gu...

Cluster Virtual Machines Across Physical Hosts
...
RDM in physical compatibility (pass-through) or virtual compatibility (non-pass-through) mode. VMware recommends physical compatibility mode. The cluster cannot use virtual disks for shared storage.

André

[tdubb123]

what would be the recommendation if I want to backup a mscs cluster with vdr? i cannot backup physical rdms.

[a_p_]

I don't think snapshots on the cluster nodes will even work. Even if they would, consider the issues which could occur, if a snapshot remains active for whatever reason and the cluster fails over a disk to the other node. This other node - not aware of the snapshot - would use the base disk instead causing data corruption.

For such use cases you need to use guest OS agent based backups.

André