neverfail for virtualcenter

[RobMokkink]

Who has worked with neverfail for virtualcenter and like to share their experiences with us?

I am curious about the product, because i usaly put VirtualCenter on a physical box, deploy the database on a MSCS with Sql server and clone the virtualcenter server on a regular basis and send the image to the DR site.

I have seen the flash demo, and it looks very promising.

[daniel_uk]

Rob,

I havnt looked into NF for VC in great detail but i presume you basically are protecting the SQL components more than the VC services.

I use NF for SQL and it works like a charm, it depends how critical your Virtual infrastructure is and how long your SLA's are.

[RobMokkink]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for your repsonse. I put the sql database on a dedicated cluster.

Only the VC components ip adress etc. needs to be replicated. I am curious if it will work oke. I am still waiting for a response from neverfail.

[ctfoster]

IMHO its overkill to run NeverFail against this server - mainly because you won't be replicating anything.

There is no dynamic information stored on the VC, it's all in database. The only thing worth backing up is the SSL certificate (used to access the VirtualCenter database, a VC configuration file, any upgrade files and your licence file (if you have it there). With these files you could have a working VC back together in 20 minutes so long as you have a database. Even if the license server fails, there is a 14 day grace period.

So long as none of these things change, any backup will get you up and running. I get round the problem by running VC as a VM under VMware Server and then periodically copying up to my ESX.

On the IP question NeverFails works by installing a driver into the IP stack that allows the passive server to 'adopt' the IP address of the 'active' server should the heatbeat fail. So in that respect the address is 'replicated'

A good resource for VC backup options can be found at.

[RobMokkink]

Thanks for your response.

Running the VC server virtual is not an option. I forgot to mention, that Update Manager will also be installed. It may be overkill to implement this product, but i have to think about the department who will administrate the environment after we designed and build it up, it has to be dummy proof.

[RParker]

I totally agree with cfoster, he makes a great statement. That is exactly how I believe it shoud be done, and while we don't run in a VM, we do backup our environment to a VM, because for me it's easier that way.

[RobMokkink]

RParker, see my reaction to cfoster. I need a good, easy DR solution, this is stated in the requirements. At the moment i am looking at Neverfail to see if it fits. Doing VC DR is no problem for me!

You can't make a design if you don't look at the requirements.

[raadek]

Hi Rob,

I haven't actually used neverfail for VC, yet their whole philosophy of protecting a service, rather than only data looks very convincing to me.

Have a look at this:

http://extranet.neverfailgroup.com/download/DS-VMware-01-08.pdf

In essence it can be treated as a BC solution, as you will have 'continous' access to your VC, should you entire site suffer from an outage:

"Neverfail provides predictive technology that continually checks the health of the VirtualCenter, SQL database and the state of the entire deployment environment.

Administrators can switchover the VMware VirtualCenter and its SQL database from the primary to the secondary server at the click of a button, or Neverfail can automate the whole failover/failback process based on pre-defined criteria."

It is not a hands-on experiece, but the slide-ware looks promising...

Rgds.

[RobMokkink]

We did a POC with Neverfail. The product is amazing. It protects OS and services as well as the data.

Failover and failback is so easy and everything keeps on working. The product also has cool features like snapshotting etc.

With clustering or running VC as a virtual machine you can't protect your data.

[daniel_uk]

Glad your PoC worked and you were pleased.

Neverfail is the best on the market for OS level protection, it is quite good how it interacts with the service level on windows, The only downside to this is the Neverfail limited app support.

Never put it on VC but I know it would rock, I alternatively was able to use the smaller version for protection of SQL running SAP and that went down like a treat.

Going to buy it?

[RobMokkink]

We are currently in the purchase fase

Limited app support?? With the Neverfail framework you can protect any app you want, offcourse you need to know what you are doing. Something i also really liked it the intelligent data synchronization.