vCenter HA: vCenter planning

[iet_sunil]

Hello,

Please provide your suggestions on the below queries (Apologies for the long list):

1. If there are 4 Hosts, how many vCenter License required, if:
1. All Four Hosts in one cluster?
2. 2 hosts in cluster1 and another 2 hosts in cluster 2 for HA purpose?
2. Is separate License of HA is required, If vCenter License is being used?
3. Which and how many Licenses are required for HA if vCenter is not being used?
4. Can the vCenter HA be achieved using Two Hosts (Active, Passive, without witness)? If yes what is the risk? Please provide the feasibility as per the below Compute 1 and Compute 2 features.
5. Is external storage (SAN) is mandatory to achieve the HA?
6. in vCenter HA: Planning to have Two VMs (VM1 and VM2) on Same host (host1). If One VM (VM1) goes down and it will started on another host (host2). I need another VM2 also to be restarted on Host 2 and shutdown on host1. e.g. both VMs should be running on same host. How to achieve this?

Thanks!!

[Hasaranga007]

Hello ,

Please find my answeres to your questions , (I don't know the answer to all of them however if you have any further questions please do ask.)

If there are 4 Hosts, how many vCenter License required, if:
All Four Hosts in one cluster?

You can use a single instance of vCenter license per Datacenter , In this scenario you can use either 1 x vCenter Foundations license(Max 4 Hosts) or 1 x Standard license (Unlimited hosts)

2 hosts in cluster 1 and another 2 hosts in cluster 2 for HA purpose? Single instance
Is separate License of HA is required, If vCenter License is being used?

HA is in-build with vCenter license . ( vSphere High Availability and vCenter HA are two things, not sure which one you are asking )
Which and how many Licenses are required for HA if vCenter is not being used? You need vCenter in order to provide HA

Can the vCenter HA be achieved using Two Hosts (Active, Passive, without witness)? If yes what is the risk? Please provide the feasibility as per the below Compute 1 and Compute 2 features. - HA can be achieved using two hosts.

Is external storage (SAN) is mandatory to achieve the HA? Yes ,  Otherwise we can't access the VMDKs in failed host.

in vCenter HA: Planning to have Two VMs (VM1 and VM2) on Same host (host1). If One VM (VM1) goes down and it will started on another host (host2). I need another VM2 also to be restarted on Host 2 and shutdown on host1. e.g. both VMs should be running on same host. How to achieve this?

There is a setting called Affinity Rule , you may check it.

Cheers,

Hasaranga.

[iet_sunil]

Thanks @Hasaranga007 For your reply!!

For the external SAN in the vCenter HA, I was checking on the below VMware link and external SAN is not mentioned in the requirement.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-8FD87389-8CC9-4298-8...

Please suggest, if data backup is not important, can we proceed without external SAN? Or some backup can be placed on the Passive host?

In my case, there are Two VMs having ESXi and different VMs are running on both of the hosts. What the plan is: to create the redundant infra to handle the single point of failure (any VM or Host). In this case vCenter HA would be the better option than vSphere High availability? For both vCenter License is required?

For HA can be achieved on Two hosts: in this case of vCenter HA – vCenter server should also be running/restarted on the 2nd host (passive) if Active Hosts goes down?

Adding one more question:  We have below Dell server Power edge R730. want to understand number of vSphere standard license required for the server? This is showing: Logical Processor – 40, socket 2 and Cores per socket 10. Will the Licence be depending on number of VMs or any other factor also?

[Hasaranga007]

Let me explain about VMWare license briefly :

vSphere license based on number of sockets per host not for VMs . Mind that there is a maximum number of cores per socket ( 32 Core ) if you have more than that you need to get additional license.
In your example I assume below is the setup :
You have 2 sockets with 10 cores per socket in a host. Therefore you need : 2 vSphaere standard license per host (2 license = 2 Sockets).

In addition to that you need to purchase vCenter license ; Either Standard or Foundations , based on your requirement.

Hope above clarifies regarding licencing.


Regarding HA , not not sure what exactly you need .

If you are looking for vSphere HA : In case of a host failed , VMs will be rebooted and starts in any available host. If that is what you need you need a shared storage
More detail : https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.avail.doc/GUID-BA85FEC4-A37C-45BA-9...

You need minimum 2 hosts for HA