Managing ESX with both (VirtualCenter and LabManager) not recommended?

[guitarman75]

Hello,

VMware recommends managing ESX Server systems with Lab Manager or VirtualCenter Server, but not both. (see VMware® Lab Manager User’s Guide; Page 16).

I´m wondering how to implement DRS or VMotion if I only manage the ESX Servers through LabManager.

Any advices?

Thanks in advance,

guitarman

[sbeaver · Accepted solution]

Lab Manager and Virtual Center are 2 different products each designed to do different things. Do not try and use both products to manage the same ESX server., It will not work and could really cause havoc in your environement

Steve Beaver

VMTN Forum Moderator

*Virtualization is a journey, not a project.*

[jefferai]

Well okay, but how about answering the question about DRS and HA?

I'm in the same boat. It sounds like what you're saying is that we need to dedicate ESX hosts specifically for Virtual Center or Lab Manager. But a tech I spoke to on the phone earlier today said that as long as you only use VirtualCenter for monitoring the LM VMs, you'd be fine.

So the questions are,

1) Can you do DRS and HA with Lab Manager? How about VMotion?

2) If Virtual Center DRS/HA cause havoc with Lab Manager VMs, can you simply shut off migration of LM's virtual machines? If so, how?

3) There's certainly some managing of ESX hosts that seems safe through Virtual Center (licensing, networking, etc.) Where does one draw the line? If HA/DRS are unsafe and you can't shut off migration of LM's virtual machines, is it sufficient to simply remove a few hosts from a HA/DRS cluster? Can VMotion still be used for systems removed from the cluster, for VMs running through Viirtual Center?

I need to find all this out because I have relatively finite resources, and the load needs for VC/LM are going to vary significantly over time back and forth. I'd like to not have to keep migrating VMs around, adding a host to VC, now removing it from VC and adding to LM, then back the other way. I don't even know if you can live migrate with Lab Manager (see question 1).

[admin]

Seperate the Lab Manager hosts from the Clustered Hosts as the features are not supported in Lab Manager + you can put Lab Manager into a VM and host that on an ESX host thats part of a cluster, thereby getting the HA/DRS availablity features for Lab Manager.

Bascally once the hosts have been licenced I placed/moved them into a sperate datacenter with an appropriate name.

Also try not to share the datastores be it isci/nfs/SAN etc..... configure the storage and connect to it via the Lab Manager interface.

I am to learning this product and the most important thing is to make clear in your mind that Lab Manager is a completely seperate product that uses the ESX Host infrastructure.

Regards

[ejward]

Lab manager is generally sold with ESX Standard Edition. HA and Vmotion is not available in Standard Edition. Vmotion (HA and DRS) is a function of Virtual Center really. Not the host. So, lab Manager on it's own can't do Vmotion. My lab Manager server is still in it's box so i can't confirm this but, I was told that Lab Manager replaces Virtual Center.

[sbeaver]

That is how I understand it also

[jefferai]

A few questions:

1) I have Lab Manager in a VM on a cluster. But that didn't answer my question about whether hosts managed by Lab Manager can do VMotion/HA/DRS-like stuff. i.e. if my users start up 20 machines as part of a Lab Manager config, will Lab Manager automatically provision them across the servers so as to best handle the current loads, etc (i.e. like DRS)? If a host goes down, will Lab Manager migrate running configs' VMs to a still-up host (i.e. like HA)? Can I manually do any of this (i.e. like VMotion)?

2) With the config you mentioned, you said once the hosts had been licensed you placed them into a separate datacenter. So then you use Virtual Center to configure the ESX hosts, but simply don't cluster them? I'm getting mixed signals about where the line is drawn between "management" and "configuration", what is considered safe/okay to do with Virtual Center with the Lab Manager ESX hosts, and what isn't?

Thanks in advance...

[sbeaver]

AFAIK there is no HA and DRS with lab manager

[admin]

The only reason I am using VC is because I have it, basically I am not doing any config of the hosts used by LM in VC apart from the licences, and a VM with LM on a host thats part of a cluster. The hosts are scripted, so all vLANS are configured I am as and when required addded vLAN tags to the LM networks00x and importing templates/vms only.

+ Confirmed no HA/DRS for LM at this time - but the new version 2nd Qtr next year I think this might change.

[admin]

Also ensure you provsion enough NICs to LM Networks000 as this used by LM to initiate Network fencing

Wife Virtualization Specialist.

[jefferai]

What is "enough"?

I've got two NICs on my host. One has the service console, and is the one I put the LM Networks on. The other has VMKernel on it. I may be able to get two more NICs on each hooked up, but I doubt it -- not only for cabling reasons, but IP space (outside of private addresses used for the VMs in LM) is limited too.

[admin]

Mainly for redundacy, buddie.

Wife Virtualization Specialist.

[jefferai]

Your two posts don't make sense together. You first said to make sure I had enough NICs for Lab Manager's network fencing. When I ask how many is "enough" for network fencing you tell me it's mainly for redundancy. But that doesn't really make sense. AFAIK you might need more NICs for fencing to have more external IP addresses if there's a limit to how many fenced hosts can be behind a single one. But that's not redundancy, that's scaling...

[admin]

You initially create a vswitch to be provisioned for the VMs be it with or with out lab manager, what the fencing does is create a virtual router between the fenced machines and your live lan, it does this by routing to the virtual switch, lmnetwork000. So the last thing you want is on a single nic for it to fail as you will lose all connectivity to the live lan for all your virtual routed fenced lab configs, so just in case I use more nics to provide redundancy and a greater bandwidth.

Wife Virtualization Specialist.