{"id":269,"date":"2015-09-20T22:33:15","date_gmt":"2015-09-20T22:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/?p=269"},"modified":"2015-11-23T22:51:04","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T22:51:04","slug":"vsphere-cluster-features","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/?p=269","title":{"rendered":"Components of VMware vSphere (Module 2 Pt.3 VMware vSphere Cluster Features)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>vMotion<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>vMotion is a migration process<\/li>\n<li>vMotion allows you to migrate a running VM from one ESXi host to another.<\/li>\n<li>Can be used to load balance ESXi hosts in a cluster by moving VMs to a host with more available resources.<\/li>\n<li>Allows you to perform hardware adjustments by moving all VMs to another host<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>How does this work<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>VMs are built on virtual hardware and are predominantly a large chunk of memory on an ESXi host<\/li>\n<li>Just need to copy that memory from one host to another<\/li>\n<li>Migration is very fault tolerant.\u00a0 If something goes wrong, the original host remains in control.<\/li>\n<li>Can operate without shared storage &#8211; can migrate even if the VMs do not use shared storage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Monitors memory and CPU loads on ESXi hosts.<\/li>\n<li>Upon VM Power up, DRS can recommend which Host to run the VM on, OR:<\/li>\n<li>Using vMotion, can automate migration of VMs to another host that isn&#8217;t being as utilized based on usage and configuration settings (rules).<\/li>\n<li>Using rules, some VMs can be bound together or forced apart (redundant clusters).<\/li>\n<li>Upon VM Powerup, DRS can recommend which Host to run the VM on.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Distributed Power Management (DPM)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Leverages the automation of DRS to consolidate VMs on specific hosts, allowing low-use hosts to shut down and save power<\/li>\n<li>Power can be restored using Wake On Lan or <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">IPMI<\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>On Power-up, DPM again leverages DRS to balance the ESXi hosts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Storage vMotion<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Allows migration of a VMs hard drive from storage device to another.<\/li>\n<li>Configures ESXi host to see both storage array, then I\/Os are written to both source and mirrored disks.<\/li>\n<li>Storage devices do not need to be the same, as long as they are both supported.<\/li>\n<li>Can move VM from Shared device to Local Storage to perform maintenance on Shared while not disrupting the VM<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Storage DRS<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Load balances Disk I\/O between storage units<\/li>\n<li>Can be manually or automated<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Storage I\/O Control<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Some applications may consume all I\/O available, at the expense of others (Database Servers, busyEmail Servers)<\/li>\n<li>Storage I\/O Control makes sure some I\/O is available for the lesser consuming applications to optimize performance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>vSphere Data Protection (VDP)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Image Based Backup (aka Bare Metal Backup)<\/li>\n<li>Can be restored as a whole and powered on (like a snapshot) or<\/li>\n<li>Can be used to selectively restore specific files.<\/li>\n<li>Leverages data duplication to make backups efficient<\/li>\n<li>V<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>A<\/strong><\/span>DP provides open set of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>A<\/strong><\/span>PIs to 3rd party backup providers so probably supported by your current backup software<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>High Availability (HA)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Helps protect against hardware failures<\/li>\n<li>vCenter used to configure, but is not required to operate &#8211; each host participates in a &#8220;monitoring relationship&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>When a Host fails, the VMs will be migrated to the surviving Hosts and restarted.\u00a0 The VMs will crash, but are often restarted with a minute or so.<\/li>\n<li>Special software and drivers can also detect a VM failure.\u00a0 If the OS crashes or other instability is detected, HA can restart the VM automatically.<\/li>\n<li>By leveraging part of VMwares &#8220;Hyperic Product Suite&#8221;, HA can monitor specific services and applications even if the OS remains active.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Monitor ESXi Hosts<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Configured by vCenter, but do not rely on it to monitor hosts<\/li>\n<li>Each ESXi host participates in monitoring other hosts<\/li>\n<li>If a host crashes, the VMs are distributed between surviving hosts<\/li>\n<li>* The crashed VMs will need to restart, but are usually up within a minute or less.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Monitor VMs<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Can also be used to monitor VMs using a special set of software and drivers. These talk to the ESXi host<\/li>\n<li>Should this communication fail due to OS fault or other issue, HA can restart the VM automatically.<\/li>\n<li>Highly configurable, so different criteria can be applied.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Monitor Applications<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Leverages WMwares &#8220;Hyperic product suite&#8221;, can monitor applications and services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Fault Tolerance (FT)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Used for applications that MUST NEVER FAIL, or can cause data corruption if they do<\/li>\n<li>Perpetually mirrors specific VMs to another ESXi host<\/li>\n<li>Used &#8220;active-passive&#8221; clustering that is completely transparent to the application<\/li>\n<li>Once a failure occurs, the &#8220;passive&#8221; VM becomes the primary and a new secondary is created automatically.<\/li>\n<li>Easy to configure<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">FA VMs are limited to 1 CPU in 5.x and up to 4 CPUs in 6.x depending on licensing.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>vSphere Replication (VR)<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Used for Data Center Replication (between data centers, different sites, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Can also be used to replicate data to a central location for data protection or recovery. (Remote locations &#8211; &gt; Corporate office)<\/li>\n<li>Can be restored at a &#8220;point in time&#8221; in case recent changes are corrupt.<\/li>\n<li>Similar to R1Soft, you configure replication interval at remote site.<\/li>\n<li>Can monitor replication to ensure it is working.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>vMotion vMotion is a migration process vMotion allows you to migrate a running VM from one ESXi host to another. Can be used to load balance ESXi hosts in a cluster by moving VMs to a host with more available resources. Allows you to perform hardware adjustments by moving all VMs to another host How ..<\/p>\n<div class=\"clear-fix\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/?p=269\" title=\"read more...\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data-center-virtualization","category-vmware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiki.thomasandsofia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}