Microsoft Clustering on VSphere

[Smitty23]

Hi All,

I've recently upgraded my Dev/Test VMWare Farm from ESX 3.5 to VSphere, and I'd like to do my Prod environment ASAP, but I have a few questions regarding a MS Cluster I have residing on that farm. I have a 2 Node Cluster across 2 ESX Servers, residing on Local Disk, and then I have the Data and Quorum disks presented via RDM. I'm told on the newer versions of ESX that is it recommended to have the OS disks on the SAN now, as opposed to local disk. What are the advantages to this other than not being vulnerable to a host crash?

Also, currently I'm unable to refresh storage on my ESX Servers due to the reservations that take place, and it will cause a failure of the MS Cluster. Is this resolved in newer versions of ESX, or is there a new design that would allow me to refresh storage on hosts that host a MS Cluster?

Thanks for the help

[karavinds1]

Hello Smitty23,

You may want to check the links below.

And according to the second link (What's New) vSphere 4.0 supports Microsoft cluster in SAN. The advantages of using this on a SAN is that we can use vMotion, DRS, DPM and other HA features.

Regards,

Aravind K

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

[Smitty23]

Thanks karavinds1, but I think this is incorrect. I dont think you can VMotion a MS Clustered VM due to the RDM's requirement

[karavinds1]

Smitty23,

You can use Storage vMotion to move between RDMs and even from a RDM to virtual disk!

Also please refer this pdf from emluex that takes about some Storage tips.

Regards,

Aravind K

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

[Smitty23]

From what I can find in http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_mscs.pdf I still cant VMotion a MS Cluster. Basically, I just want to know if any of my challenges I listed in my original post are correctable. Otherwise, I'll still be limited with refreshing storage, and if I cant use VMWare features, Ill still keep my OS Disks on Local Storage.

[AndreTheGiant]

Usually is not possible.

But see the last notes on

Andre