How to implement ESX 3.5 High Availability

[ruival]

Hi all,

my company bougth ESX Server 3.5, the goal was to gain some confidence and knowledge in virtualization technology.

I have successfully deployed (P2V) 14 VM in this ESX server (win NT/2000/2003) and we are now sure that virtualization is the way to go.

Next step is to add some more VM (both P2V or clone/template) but we are now facing the high availability challenge.

I'd like to ear from you experience, what is the best way to achieve redundancy/high availability with vmware, the point is that our VM "lives" in only one server .. if this server "blows up" i lost a lot of critical services ...

The server is a HP Proliant DL360 G5, 2x quadcore processor, 10Gb ram, HBA connected to our company SAN (hp eva 4000)

ESx server 3.5 infrastructure foundation (formerly know by Starter) , without Virtual Center

Thanks in advance.

[max_inglis]

To achieve HA you really just need a second server with ESX installed, a virtual center server (windows box with a database available, like a locally-installed SQL instance), and the licensing for HA from vmware. Try to make your second box the same as the first one, so you can use VMotion as easily as possible - if they aren't identical processors, there's some advanced config you have to do to get VMotion working.

Build your virtual center server, add the licensing from vmware to it, then attach your existing ESX host to it inside a datacenter and cluster that you create, and then build your second ESX box. Once built, attach to it with the virtual center server, and then configure that cluster for HA (which is as simple as it sounds - right-click the cluster and select "configure for HA").

[weinstein5]

As max pointed out there are a number of pieces to implement vmware HA - one thing that max left out is some form of shared storage eith FC SAN, iSCSI SAN or NAS/NFS storage - also vmotionis not required for HA since it is not used to start the VM on the other host - and I also want to point out that there is a brief outgae of the VM because if the ESX server crashes the VM will crash and will restart on the other ESX server - this time period is about 2 minutes -

[max_inglis]

He mentioned it was attached to his company SAN already - but yeah VMotion isn't a requirement of HA or vice versa, but I mentioned it so you don't go trying to cluster an AMD with a bunch of Intel servers, or vice-versa. The HA will still work fine, since the servers are technically down for a couple minutes as mentioned, but for Vmotion to work the CPUs have to be identical, or you have to have CPU masking working, which is the advanced stuff I was talking about.

[weinstein5]

Ahh - I missed that about the SAN - since the vm does restart cpu compatability is not as critical.

[max_inglis]

Agreed about the restarting - cpu compatability isn't critical, but VMotion is such a nice feature, I hate to see anyone not using it

[ruival]

you guys are great ! :smileycool:

thanks for you kick responses.

one question .. is it a requirement that i do i have to buy virtual center to build HA ?

Best regards

Rui

[weinstein5]

Yes Virtual Center is required to set up and manage VMware HA -

[dennes]

FYI,

If your setup is going to be 2 server only for HA, check out the HA Accellerator Kit. It's a bundle of 2x ESX 3.5 Standard (HA/VCB) with Virtual Center included.

Dennes

[joseegpd23]

We're in the process of virtualizing some of the servers in our environment using ESX and HA. Is the HA wizard capable of finding that secondary ESX or do we have to do any switching configurations? We're planning to place a Cisco 3560G on the secondary ESX. Thanks.

[eagleh]

Once you have created a cluster of 2 ESXs and configured HA, Virtual Center Server will do the rest.