I currently have a ESX 3.5 environment with two physical hosts in a single Data Center Cluster. Hosts all my production VM Servers
I am now building a 3rd host (ESXi) to house just virtual workstations. I am wanting to add this host to my VC for a single management console for all my VM Hosts, but I want to know the best practice on this. I feel that I should not add the 3rd (ESXi) host into the ESX Cluster.
Should I just add a new cluster under the datacenter, just add the host to the current datacenter (but not under the cluster), or create a new datacenter.
Please let me know your suggestions or if you a similar environment.
Thank you
Michae
Custer is needed if you plan to use HA or DRS.
On how configure vCenter see:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_esx_vc_installation_guide.pdf
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_admin_guide.pdf
Or, if you use VC 2.5:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_installation_guide.pdf
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_admin_guide.pdf
Andre
I am guessing this ESXi host has no shared but local storage? In that case, you should not add the host to the cluster (failover does not work anyway if the host does not see the shared storage). Also, DRS and HA will not function without it.
If you do have shared storage on the 3rd node (shared with 1 and 2), you could consider adding it to the cluster. But remember, in that case also your CPUs should be equal / alike (no mix of AMD and Intel for sure!).
Since you are building an ESXi server (and not an ESX server), I also assume you want to use the free edition of ESXi? Remember that a "free" ESXi cannot be added to vCenter at all. In that case you'd need a licensed ESXi server, at which point it would make more sense to create an ESX server just like server 1 and two...
If you decide to use a licensed ESXi server, and you add it to vCenter, it would make all sense in the world to put it in the same datacenter (thats where it is I think?), outside the cluster.
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If you are not going to use HA/DRS just create a new cluster for your ESXi server. Keep as single datacenter. This may make since from a management standpoint. Will need to license if you want to manage from VC.
Mike