MS Cluster & VMWare

Question

Hi All,

Current we use SQL Server 2008 Enterprise 64 bit on Windows E 64 bit Clustered Environment.

We now would like to implement clustered inside VMWare Environment: EqualLogic PS 4000 series & VMWare ESX Server 4.1

Are there any draw back with this  Intergration.

 

Any advise would really appreciated.

 

Thanks A lot

 

 

 

Answer 1

It looks like as of vSphere 4.1 "Clustered Virtual Machines that utilize Windows Failover Clustering/Microsoft Cluster Service are now fully supported in conjunction with VMware HA".  You'll probably want to ready this.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_mscs.pdf

 

 

 

 

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David A. Bermingham, MVP Senior Technical Evangelist, SIOS Technology Corp

Answer 2

Hi David,

 

Thanks for the document.

Here what we have found so far regarding utilizing MS 2008 R2 Clustering Services with VMWare 4.1:

1) Only Support Fibre Channel, not iSCSI

2) All feature in VMWare:FT,HA,DRS,VMotion are all disabled.

3) Max CPU for VM: 4 Core CPU

4) Support Only Two Clustereted Nodes

5) All Benmarchs  done by VMWare & Dell : SQL Server are Department level or Scheduler level or One Database Server per VM

 

Please review and advice

 

Thanks & Regards,

 

 

 

 

Answer 3

Please check the article: - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2010/07/27/10042799.aspx and http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004617

 

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Harsh Chawla Personal Blog:- http://blogs.msdn.com/batala Team Blog:- http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlserverfaq/

Answer 4

Thanks Harsh,

Also, found in this document:

1) Only support 32bits NOT 64bit version. !!!

 

So, for us the question still remain:

" Should we implementing MS Clustering inside VMWare , especially Applications require High I/O, transactions, Availability... "

 

Any comment and advice would be very much appreciated,  especially some one Done this before.

 

Thanks &  Regards,

 

 

Answer 5

If these limitations are preventing you from implementing Windows Failover Cluster on VMWare, then, consider testing Microsoft Hyper-V for your virtualization platform instead

http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx

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Edwin Sarmiento SQL Server MVP
Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn

Answer 6

Where did you find the "only supports 32 bit versions" part? I've looked at both documents and have not found it.

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Chuck

Answer 7

   Hello Spatial_Partition.

   I was configured successfully windows Failover Clustering on VMWARE ESXi 4.1 and 5.0 successfully.

  and iSCSI also supporting. Please go through this it may useful for  you...

http://sudeeptaganguly.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/building-a-sql-server-2008-r2-cluster-part-vi/

Answer 8

Are you looking at VMware only or can you try getting Hyper?

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yup

Answer 9

  

       Hello Yup,

            I was done failover clustering on vmware and Dedicated servers only. till now i never tried on hyper V.... If you have any documents, pls provide me.

 Can give  me Idea on  difference between vmware and Hyper V.   Failover clustering.

Answer 10

I've done clusters in HyperV virtual env, never clustered hyper V itself.

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yup

Answer 11

       Can you provide me Document, what you done Hyper-V virtual environment.

      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        RAMU

Answer 12

Dont see a way to upload that here, share your email address & I will mail you.....

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yup

Answer 13

This my mail address

                          [e-mail]