VMware Cloud Community
tdubb123
Expert
Expert

vcenter high availability

What are my options for vcenter high availability? I current run 2 vcenter in 2 sites, but most of the datacenters and cliusters are concentrated on one and I added the other one in as linked mode.

Do I need vcenter heartbeat? But if I upgrade to 5.5, I heard I do not need vcenter heartbeat and can use sql clustering?

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Reply
markdjones82
Expert
Expert

tdubb,

This KB should point you in the right direction: VMware KB:     Supported vCenter Server high availability options  

I used Vcenter Heartbeat for a couple years and personally was not a fan of it.  It still required all services to be restarted and failed over which resulted in about the same amount of downtime as using Vsphere HA.  With heartbeat you must maintain multiple servers per component.

I would recommend just running your Vcenter as a virtual machine and using built in Vsphere HA.  Setup a management cluster so you know where your Virtual Centers are in case of an issue or use DRS rules.

It does appear you can use SQL clustering now, but that would only protect your SQL server.

http://www.twitter.com/markdjones82 | http://nutzandbolts.wordpress.com
Reply
0 Kudos