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nordsj
Contributor
Contributor

Does ESX support 64 Bit Exchange (LCR) Clustering.

Does anyone have this up and running Exchange LCR Cluster in a ESX environment, also can I still have the VM in a DRS/HA cluster.

Does LCR have the same caveats as MSCS in a VMware cluster.

Here are the limitations when running MSCS:

Caveats and Restrictions to Running Microsoft Clustering within VMware ESX.

This section summarizes caveats and restrictions. The software listed as supported has been tested by VMware. Other software has not been tested.

• Each virtual machine by default has five PCI slots available. A cluster uses four of these slots (two network adapters and two SCSI host bus adapters), leaving one PCI slot for a third network adapter (or other device), if needed.

• VMware virtual machines currently emulate only the SCSI-2 disk reservation protocol and do not support applications using SCSI-3 disk reservations.

• You must use 2GB FC HBAs with one of the drivers listed in the checklist. See Appendix A.

• You must use LSILogic virtual SCSI adapter.

• You must use VMXNet (not vlance).

• You can use only 32-bit virtual machines (not 64-bit virtual machines).

• You can use only 2-node clustering.

• iSCSI clustering is not supported on iSCSI or NFS disks.

• The STORPort driver is not supported in the guest operating system. Only the SCSI miniport driver is supported.

• NIC teaming is not supported with clustering.

• The boot disk for the virtual machine must be stored on local storage.

• Boot from SAN for the ESX Server host is not supported.

• Mixed HBA environments (QLogic and Emulex) on the same host are not supported.

• Mixed environments using both ESX Server 2.5 and ESX Server 3.0 are not supported.

• Clustered virtual machines cannot be part of VMware clusters (DRS or HA).

• You cannot use VMotion on virtual machines that run cluster software.

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8 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

If there's any bus sharing involved between the 2 VMs, then VMotion or DRS won't work. HA should still work however.

I have not setup a cluster like this one...only the old school MSCS Exchange 2003 2-node active/passive types...but know that VMotion checks for bus sharing...and won't allow it to take place. Same goes for DRS.

Chris

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VirtualNoitall
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Hello,

I think LCR should be OK. I am saying this having not tested it myself but LCR is basically log shipping. There is no shared hardware, no clustering software as with MSCS so I believe you are in the clear. I also don't see a reason why it wouldn't work in a DRS/HA environment.

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nordsj
Contributor
Contributor

thx guys, just did not know alot about LCR so we'll be testing this sooon

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cheeko
Expert
Expert

You seem to be talking about CCR. As for LCR, this is a no brainer. You just need a second disk attached to the VM and there you go.

See the details here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124721.aspx

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nordsj
Contributor
Contributor

What is CCR ?

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nordsj
Contributor
Contributor

Never Mind, just looked @ the link in your response

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Arun_kumar
Contributor
Contributor

the ESX server does not support x64 Bit Exchange (LCR) Clustering.see the compability list.............

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nathanlake
Contributor
Contributor

LCR is technically supported by ms, however ccr and scr are not supported.

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