Active/Passive vCenter Server setup

[grahamwm]

Hi,

Has anyoen got some info about setting up a backup vCenter Server which can come online if the primary fails. The Backup needs to be in a different site and must be able to take over if the primary fails. This would be a DR scenario.

Any info would be great.

[madda]

There isn't any direct way of doing this as ESX hosts can only be registered with a single VC

You could setup your VC as a VM on a host with HA enabled, therefore if 1 host went down, HA would kick in and bring the VM up on the other host. VC is only needed to setup HA, it isn't needed for its general operation therefore in this scenario having VC as a VM is viable.

[Troy_Clavell]

...along the lines of that, you may consider a clustered enviornment as well.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VC_MSCS.pdf

[kjb007]

For DR purposes, if the VC was a vm on a datastore, or on the SAN itself, then you could replicate the storage and have it available on your remote site. You could also replicate your database alone, and bring up a vc server at your remote site, and use your db to bring up the original vc data. The trick is to point all of your hosts to the new server. The networking piece is the hardest part here, and pointing your ESX hosts to this new server.

Since I would have different hosts at my remote site, I instead use a complete cluster at my remote site, and run vc as a vm in both. This way, I get HA, and DR. My datastores are replicated, (I don't have SRM yet), and my remote ESX hosts rescan for the new LUNs in case of disaster scenario, and I register the vm's in that site, and use NAT to make those vm's available.

Works very well, and I can have my remote site up in minutes.

-KjB

[grahamwm]

moved to vCenter 4.0