MSCS on VMWARE 4.1 for EV 9

[EVHolic]

All - we are the process of implementing a new EV installation and would like to benefit from the application level fault tolerance provided by MSCS. Though our preferred method of deployment is on VMWARE 4.1i.

I have read a bunch of forum information and even discussed with some Symantec sales folks but I'm still to find a client using MSCS on VMWARE for EV.

Has anyone on the forum implemented this solution?

If so, any recommendations/discussion points are welcomed.

thanks.

[TonySterling]

personally I have not set EV up on VM using MSCS but wanted to make sure you saw this:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004617

regards,

[EVHolic]

Tony - thanks. Yep we have rewieved those docs and currently we had issues with our "San Volume Controller" not being compatible with MSCS and vmware 4.1i. So we're going throught the painful process of complex hardware requirements with multiple technologies being involved.

I'm hoping someone on the forum has done this as its a great solution and I know it will work but I wanted to get some practical information.

[FreKac2]

Just a question, what is the reason behind using MSCS/Failover Cluster on VMWare?

Wouldn't e.g. ApplicationHA (from Symantec) work ?

[EVHolic]

Do you mean Storage Foundation with VCS? If so, we don't have the license for it as our clustering solution is based on Microsoft.

I'm trying to get a reference from Symantec and we have yet to find a single customer using this architecture. It's sort of hard to believe as VMWARE and MSCS are so prevalent and are supported.

[FreKac2 · Accepted solution]

Application HA is based on VCS technology but as far as I know it's not licensed as such.

http://www.symantec.com/application-ha

So it integrates with VMWare to get application/service awareness.

But you would have to check with a Symantec rep. for costs etc.

I guess the reason for the lack of input is that most use the features inherited in VMWare or they don't virtualize.

At least with MSCS (not Failover Cluster as of W2K8) it requires the quorum disk to be a RDM disk which put constraints on how you can failover the VM between hosts.

E.g. the VMWare hosts have to share storage etc.