VMware Cloud Community
ggeorgi
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

VMWARE Begginers Clustering Question

Hi all,

As you can understand,I am new to the Vwmare Clustering Theory and Implemantation..... I have some simple questions to ask:

1. I was reading about Virtual Center, HA and DRS and from what i understood, we have 2 or more physical and clustered (in ESX level) machines (nodes). If a physical machine goes off, ESX boot these virtual machines in the other physical machine. Am I correct?

2. What happens if a virtual machine fails or become curropted? We do not have redudancy in this senario? Do we have other options for clustering and redudancy to avoid such failures?

Thank you all in advance!!!

George Georgiadis

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
rschmidt1300
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

You could implement third party clustering (i.e. Microsoft Cluster Services) between two virtual machines to give you a level of redundancy in the event of a vm failure.

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
9 Replies
arisaperstein
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

You are correct in your understanding for question 1.

you will need to backup your vmdk's (and config files)seperatly in order to protect against corruption. There are several software solutions for this. VCB is one, ESX Ranger is another.

rschmidt1300
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

You could implement third party clustering (i.e. Microsoft Cluster Services) between two virtual machines to give you a level of redundancy in the event of a vm failure.

Reply
0 Kudos
hicksnestle
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

For #1, use esXpress or Commvault.

ggeorgi
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Thank you for your immediate answers and help.......

I would like to make some further questions:

1. Is there a possibility to have clustered ESX machines and at the same time Microsoft Cluster Services for the virtual machines? As you understand, I want to implement a full redudant Microsoft and VMWARE enviroment.

2. If not are there any 3rd party utils to implement the above environment?

I would appreciate if you could give me links to additional documentations

Thanks,

George Georgiadis

Reply
0 Kudos
ggeorgi
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Sorry it was a mistake to mark this post as answered

Reply
0 Kudos
rschmidt1300
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

You could deploy a cluster-across-boxes to implement a Microsoft Cluster with a VM on one ESX host and a VM on a different ESX host. You can do this natively in ESX so you wouldn't need to buy a third-party solution. You would then implement HA to protect the other VMs that are not part of a Microsoft cluster from a failure of a single ESX host.

Reply
0 Kudos
arisaperstein
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

The term cluster in ESX refers to a group of hosts that share storage. the purpose of this storage sharing is primarily for VMotion, HA and DRS. The guests do not see any of this clustering. Therefore you can setup MCSC within the guests in the same manner as if the guests were physical servers. One way to do this is have ESXServer1 host guestclusternode1 and ESXServer2 host guestclusternode2. Create a quorum disk quorum.vmdk and assign it to both nodes. Then run MSCS and BINGO.

What I have done on the past is cross active and passive cluster members accross multiple ESX hosts. For example, 5 active nodes and 5 passive nodes on ESXServer1 and host the opposite on ESXServer2.

Veritas also makes a product called VCS for VMWare. While it is more expensive, it is more robust. Check out http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/products/otherresources.jsp?pcid=1019&pvid=20_1

Thank you for your immediate answers and help.......

I would like to make some further questions:

1. Is there a possibility to have clustered ESX machines and at the same time Microsoft Cluster Services for the virtual machines? As you understand, I want to implement a full redudant Microsoft and VMWARE enviroment.

2. If not are there any 3rd party utils to implement the above environment?

I would appreciate if you could give me links to additional documentations

Thanks,

George Georgiadis

Reply
0 Kudos
dbis
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Hi George,

As others have pointed out, HA allows you to bring the VM back online on another ESX host. This will protect you against a failure of that ESX host.

You can also use MSCS and cluster two VM's together that reside on two ESX hosts, this gives you the additional software layer protection.

Last but not least, you could use Veritas Cluster Service (now Symantec) for additional functionality.

The benefit to HA is that there is almost no complexity involved. You do not need to be familiar with clustering. Assuming you a running Windows VM's you also can reduce cost as you do not need a Windows Enterprise edition and the same goes for your applications. The other benefit is that with MSCS the application needs to be cluster aware, where HA will work with any OS/application combination.

In short, HA is a very cost effictive solution to get high availability for servers or companies that normally could not cost justify this, but it does not replace clustering technologies.

Last but not least, using VMotion with a MSCS clustered VM is not supported. This also means that an MSCS clustered VM should never be a part of a DRS cluster.

Sincerely,

Daniel Bischops

Reply
0 Kudos
ggeorgi
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Thank you all guys..... Now it is implemantation time.... Thanks again for your help ..... I will be back if I will have any other questions or if I concluded to a configuration that covers exact what I am willing to do.

Reply
0 Kudos