Virtual Center 4.1 and SQL 2008 Mirroring + vHeartbeat

[jslarouche]

Hello all,

Is VC 4.1 and SQL 2008 and vHeartbeat supported to do SQL DB mirroring? Does anyone have any documents to validate this question please?

[chadwickking]

The only related vmware hearbeat doc that I know of is this PDF here:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/heartbeat_63_quick_start.pdf

I didn't see anything noted about mirroring the database but I have seen some posting in the forums about users using database mirroring. I know that heartbeat was provided by The Neverfail group and they do have a DB piece that does do database mirroring. It seems that heartbeat is just for a secondary vCenter server which I know doesn't do database protection - it does in essence that if the primary fails then the secondary can pick up where it left off. If you read where it talks about the database being located on the local vCenter server your DB is "unprotected" because you cannot obviously access it from secondary because the primary is down. It would make sense that DB mirroring would be supported as it would provide another level of HA.

here is the forum where I did find a user using mirroring:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/165775

There is also a document on SQL server Availibility on vsphere is mentions some on mirroring but not really relevant to this situation:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/solutions/SQL_Server_Availability_Guide_FINAL.pdf

It seems to me that this would be supported in my opinion but perhaps someone else can elaborate more for us both

Regards,

Chad King

VCP

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[meistermn]

I think is info is helpful:

http://www.vmware.com/support/heartbeat/doc/heartbeat_63_release_notes.html

The update introduces a number of new features:

• Distributed vCenter and SQL servers can now be grouped as a pair of servers providing the single business application

• vCenter Servers can be grouped providing management of vSphere infrastructure by Organizational Unit

• The UI shows rolled up status of the health of the applications and servers within a group as well as a

• User customizations now can be disabled for diagnostic and support purposes.

• Native 64bit architecture

• Support for vSphere 4.0 Update 2 and 4.1

• Support for Windows Server 2008 R2

• Support for View Composer 1.1 and 2.0

[jslarouche]

Interesting that not more poeple haven't tried to set this up for HA purposes.. I guess i'll have to setup a POC and see how it works in our environment.. Thanks for the info.

[hafeezpashamoha]

our vCenter 4.1 is using SQL 2008 SP1 for DB and i have setup Mirror between two 2 SQL servers and don't see any issue.

[jslarouche]

Is your VC server setup as virtual machines? or did you make them both physical?