Cluster in a box with ESXi

[jlanger]

Hey All,

I was curious if it is possible to setup a MS Cluster in a box with ESXi? I know this is support on ESX with the use of RDM's, but I am using local datastores to house my VM instead of SAN/NAS (test system). Is this possible to do and if so can someone point me to the documentation? I have tried searching the forums and haven't come up with anything.

TIA,

-Jason

[asatoran]

You could create a separate iSCSI target VM. I used one of the iSCSI appliances and used that as my SAN. I did this MSCS-in-a-box on Workstation6 and Server1. Because the iSCSI target is a VM, there is no need to configure anything on the host side. You just setup the iSCSI target and the Windows VMs just like you would if they were physical boxes. Thus it doesn't matter that you're using local storage for ESX and it doesn't matter what virtualization product you use. The SAN is just another VM.

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

If you're doing this with Windows 2003 then see this document - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35u2/vi3_35_25_u2_mscs.pdf.

[jlanger]

Thank you Dave! That did the trick. Points have been rewarded!

-Jason