x64 Windows 2003 MSCS now supported?

[villathor]

Hi there folks,

I have tried my best to search out an answer to this before posting, however nothing seems to offer a clear answer.

Question:

With the latest patches to ESX 3.0.1 (3199476 & 2066306) are x64 Windows 2003 guests now supported in a MSCS configuration?

If I understand the core issue, the problem was never really x64 per say, but the fact that the x64 edition of Windows 2003 included SP1 code - and the problem lay with SP1.

All the same I would like to verify this before proceeding.

Thanks!

PS. I've got to say that ESX is a wonderful platform.

We are running Exchange 2007 in a hosting configuration on ESX with iSCSI storage - and have had NO problems (ignoring this MSCS issue

[snowbird]

I have never found a clear article that states Windows 2003 64 bit is supported for clustering. ESX 3.0.1 does support clustering of Windows 2003 SP1 with the patches you listed and it does support 64 bit 2003. I have been running 2003 64 bit clustered on ESX without any issues since it came out.

I know that VM folks watch these lists so hopefully they will chime in.

[villathor]

Thanks SnowBird, that is good (albeit unofficial) news.

Where you running MSCS on x64 guests before the patches came out or after?

Thanks!

[snowbird]

Since 3.0, knowing it wasn't supported. It was for our dev group.

[villathor]

So for what its worth here is the update...

Got the cluster going w/ x64 guests, no issues applying the ESX patches - in fact neither required a reboot which was nice.

The only thing which presently gives me pause is that per all the documentation I could read we are supposed to use the VMXNET vnic - however after doing so the system would fail to boot.

Upon checking the VM configuration the strange thing is that after making the VMX change to VMXNET the guest now only has the CPU listed in its hardware inventory. Strange.

Another thing (which only happened once or twice) was that the VIC complained (after trying to boot with VMXNET configured) that this vnic was not compatible with x64.

Bottom line is that things seem to work just fine w/ E1000.

Any thoughts on this?

Cheers...

[snowbird]

I stayed with the E1000 and haven't had any problems.

[pdrace]

Isn't ISCSI unsupported for clustering VMs or has that changed?

[villathor]

Not sure if anything has, but we are not using iSCSI for shared storage (CCR with Exchange 2007).

Thanks to the new MNS option with CCR the quorum becomes a file share, then the replication happens at the application layer.

[pdrace]

I haven't looked at Exchange 2007 yet, what is CCR .

Only thing I can think of is Creedence Clearwater Revival.

[villathor]

C[/b]luster C[/b]ontinuous R[/b]eplication

More info here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124521.aspx

Useful if you don't have shared storage or if you don't want the single point of failure inherent with Single Copy Clusters (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125217.aspx)

Cheers

[snowbird]

I did notice this in the cluster guide.

"You can use only 32‐bit virtual machines (not 64‐bit virtual machines)."

[villathor]

Yes, but if you look a little deeper it seems that the reason why x64 VMs where not supported was because 2003 SP1 was not supported for clustering.

x64 was in the same boat because the x64 version of Windows 2003 includes SP1.

However clustering with SP1 is now supported with the two patches mentioned above.

[Anders]

x64 Windows 2003 MSCS is not supported as of now.

It's not that we have any known issues, but the qualification testing have not been done.

(so we don't really know if there are any issues really)

I know it's a popular request as exchange 2007 is 64 bit only atm.

I have a costumer who is going full speed ahead, altough it is unsupported.

Let you know if they have succes or not...

\- Anders

[villathor]

That's pretty much what I expected, not in a bad way.

And yes, that's why we jumped to x64 - Exchange 2007.

So far so good.

I was expecting more problems w/ the iSCSI / x64 / MSCS ball of possible issues, but instead I end up spending most of my time in ADSIedit!

That makes me feel good about ESX.

[Wv]

Is x64 Windows 2003 MSCS supported now in Vmware? If not, when will it be supported? Any know issues with it?

Thanks,

Jo