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VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat – Overview

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat – Overview. Agenda. Why is VMware vCenter Availability Important? What Needs to be Protected? Protecting vCenter Server with vCenter Server Heartbeat. Self Service Management. Self Service Portal . Service Catalog. Billing / Chargeback. Availability.

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VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat – Overview

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  1. VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat – Overview

  2. Agenda • Why is VMware vCenter Availability Important? • What Needs to be Protected? • Protecting vCenter Server with vCenter Server Heartbeat

  3. Self Service Management Self Service Portal Service Catalog Billing/Chargeback Availability Security Performance SLA Driven Management Model vCenter .2 Milli-seconds 99.99% High Infrastructure Management Provisioning Configuration Capacity Operations Performance Availability Virtual Datacenter Operating System

  4. What is VMware vCenter Server?

  5. vCenter Server: A Key Infrastructure Component A universal hub for virtualization management

  6. How Do You Use vCenter Server? • Monitor cluster, host and VM performance • Manage VM and host provisioning • Patch and update hosts and VMs • Configure and operate VMotion, DRS and HA • Provision and manage a VDI environment • Manage disaster recover plans

  7. Impact of vCenter Server Downtime

  8. Agenda • Why is VMware vCenter Availability Important? • What Needs to be Protected? • Protecting vCenter Server with vCenter Server Heartbeat

  9. Determining a Strategy • Define the Scope of Protection Desired • Which is most important? • Local high availability for hardware/network failures? • Protecting application integrity and uptime against all types of threats? • Remote disaster recovery for large scale, site-wide outages? • What is the recovery time objective? • Need to base this on what functionality is unavailable during vCenter Server outage

  10. How Do You Protect vCenter Server Today? • No protection • Keep a backup copy archived • Cold standby • Clustering • VMware HA

  11. Protecting vCenter Server vCenter Server vCenter Server Database Server Database Server Replication ofstate files VI Services Primary Standby VI Inventory Standard DR Solution

  12. What is required to restore vCenter functionality? • vCenter Server is an almost stateless application • Data stored in the vCenter database is the most critical resource • Following data is necessary to restore the vCenter functionality (with intact database) • vCenter server IP Address • DNS name for ODBC connection • License files for the License Manager Server • Security Certificates • vCenter Configuration file • vCenter Plug-in data • Customized data from upgrade directory (if applicable)

  13. Cold Standby Recovery Procedure: Simple, Slow Maintain separateup to date copy oflocal configurationfiles Disaster! Install freshvCenterinstance Able to assignprimary’s IP tostandby? Installconfig files; connect tostandby DB ESX Server hostsreconnectautomatically yes no Run script to reconnectall ESX Server hosts Done

  14. Warm Standby Recovery Procedure: Complex, Faster Keep localconfiguration filessynchronized betweenprimary and standby Faster end-to-end recovery (RTO) • Also allows for scripting and automation • Replication of configuration files through host-based replication or backup tools Disaster! Able to assignprimary’s IP tostandby? ESX Server hostsreconnectautomatically yes no Run script to reconnectall ESX Server hosts Done

  15. Agenda • Why is VMware vCenter Availability Important? • What Needs to be Protected? • Protecting vCenter Server with vCenter Server Heartbeat

  16. Solutions for Protecting vCenter Server • vCenter downtime greatly impacts productivity of VI Administrators • However, several options can be used to mitigate the potential for vCenter Server downtime • The solution of choice will depend on level of protection desired and recovery point objectives.

  17. Protecting vCenter Server Against Downtime Threats vCenter Server Linked Mode provides visibility across multiple vCenter Servers (coming in 2009) Replicated licenses & roles VMware HA protects a virtualized vCenter Server against hardware and OS downtime vCenter Server vCenter Server vCenter Server vCenter Server vCenter Server vCenter Server VMware HA ESXi ESX ESXi ESXi ESXi ESX ESX Heartbeat provides broad failover protection for vCenter Server against all types of planned or unplanned downtime Active Passive vCenter Server vCenter Server vCenter Heartbeat

  18. Introducing VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat • Extends availability for the vCenter Server platform • Add-on to vCenter Server protects critical components of the infrastructure • Deep awareness of all vCenter Server components • Simple configuration and deployment • Replicates all data and transactions to a standby server • Failover of the application and database over the LAN or WAN

  19. Introducing VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat • Best-of breed-technology • VMware has selected Neverfail to provide the underlying technology • Proven technology supports SQL, Exchange, Blackberry availability • vCenter Server Heartbeat is a VMware product and fully supported by VMware

  20. vCenter Server Heartbeat Hardware Failures OS Failures vCenter Server Application Failures Network Failures vCenter Server Heartbeat

  21. vCenter Server Heartbeat Architecture • Software Based Solution Providing: • Paired Servers with Shared Nothing Architecture • Active/Passive clone • Hardware Agnostic • Physical & Virtual Support • Application Awareness (AMF) • Hardware and Software Redundancy • Automated Failover • Planned Maintenance • Network Monitoring • Low Bandwidth Module

  22. Comparing vCenter Server Heartbeat Deeper more granular protection than other solutions

  23. vCenter Server Heartbeat: Defense in Depth Complete vCenter Heartbeat Replication Depth of HA protection Clustering VMware HA Hardware/OS Specific All Breadth of workloads supported

  24. Summary: Why vCenter Server Heartbeat? • High availability for VC is growing in importance for customers running VMware in production • Underlying infrastructure needs to be fully protected • HA provides robust general-purpose protection of virtualized workloads • Need to protect against configuration errors, network failures, OS failures, database failures with WAN failover support • Many customers run vCenter Server on a physical server • Other solutions are expensive, complex and lack app awareness, support for database, WAN failover • Customers have been asking for a VMware solution that provides more granular availability for vCenter Server

  25. Introducing VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat • Extends availability for the vCenter Server platform • Announce at VMworld Europe, GA in mid-March • Add-on to vCenter Server protects critical components of the infrastructure • Deep awareness of the vCenter Server components • Failover of the application and database over the LAN or WAN • Best-of breed-technology • VMware has signed an agreement to license the technology for Heartbeat and sell it as a VMware product • Proven technology supports SQL, Exchange, Blackberry availability • VMware will provide training and support as with any other VMware product • Neverfail provides underlying technology and updates, as well as support for field, channel and GSS enablement

  26. Questions?

  27. Backup Slides

  28. VMware HA for vCenter Server Availability • This section discusses how HA can be used for vCenter Server availability

  29. Solutions for Protecting vCenter • vCenter downtime greatly impacts productivity of VI Administrators • However, several options can be used to mitigate the potential for vCenter downtime • The solution of choice will depend on level of protection desired and recovery point objectives.

  30. Two approaches Two vCenter instances manage each other (pictured) Both run in HA cluster Each manages the other’s HA cluster Separate vCenter instance is used to manage 2-node HA cluster (not pictured) vpxd vpxd vCenter with VMware HA: Out-of-Band

  31. vCenter Server manages the VMware HA cluster providing its protection When the ESX hosts with vCenter VM fails, VM is restarted automatically by HA Failover functionality provided by HA is independent from vCenter (post-configuration) vpxd vCenter with VMware HA: In-Band

  32. Comparing Solutions: VMware HA and Clustering

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