I think Ken stated it well. In the case of a service failing - or heaven
forbid a critical OS file ("ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt", anyone?) -
VMware really gives you minimal protection.
Please don't get me wrong - I am a HUGE VMware fan, we have about 600-ish VMs
here running with VMotion, Site Recovery Manager and all the rest of the
goodies. It just provides fault tolerance on a lower layer than traditional
clustering. I prefer both given the option.
Anyone using UCS? We are starting to move heavily into that arena.
Jim Holmgren
Director of Technology Infrastructure
XLHealth Corporation
The Warehouse at Camden Yards
351 West Camden Street, Suite 100
Baltimore, MD 21201
410.625.2200 (main)
443.524.8573 (direct)
443-506.2400 (cell)
www.xlhealth.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Schaefer [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 10:27 PM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: RE: File Services Clustering in Server 2012
If the service (e.g. SQL Server or the File Service) fails then VMWare has
limited options for detected and failing that service over to another node.
Likewise if a part of the operating system stops responding/working.
What VMWare does provide well is the ability to cater for faults at the
hardware level. Stuff like vMotion and storage motion you can, give or take a
few features, get with Hyper-V v3
Cheers
Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, 6 December 2012 11:03 AM
To: NT System Admin Issues
Subject: Re: File Services Clustering in Server 2012
erm...
I'm not sure what you mean by OS failover vs. hardware failover.
VMware, depending on the version you've purchased, will indeed provide what I
would think of as OS failover, in one of two ways, depending on how much money
you've spent - perhaps you can enlighten me on that point.
With Essentials Plus, if your physical host blows up/melts down,the VMs on that
node appears on another node of your cluster as if they've been rebooted. You
can also seamlessly migrate a running VM from one host to another via vMotion,
if both are in working order.
With more expensive versions of VMware, if the physical host faults, the VMs on
that node will seamlessly migrate to one of your other nodes - no down time at
all. Also with the more expensive versions of VMware, you get Storage vMotion,
which allows you to move a VM, while it's running, from one SAN LUN to another,
along with regular vMotion.
Depending on version purchased, VMware nodes can also monitor VMs and if one
fails or stops responding they can restart the VM.
Granted, this isn't the same kind of functionality a (for instance) SQL cluster
provides, but it's pretty dang cool, IMHO.
Whether you should do an MS cluster on top of your VMware cluster is something
I don't have experience with, however, so can't speak to it.
I also do not as yet have any experience with HyperV, so can't compare it
meaningfully to VMware products.
Kurt
On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Jim Holmgren <[email protected]> wrote:
> That's a pretty bold statement. ESX clustering does not provide application
> or OS failover - only hardware failover.
>
> I would not call ESX clustering "vastly superior" to Microsoft clustering.
> They provide different functionality.
>
> Jim
>
> Jim Holmgren
> Director of Technology Infrastructure
> XLHealth Corporation
> The Warehouse at Camden Yards
> 351 West Camden Street, Suite 100
> Baltimore, MD 21201
> 410.625.2200 (main)
> 443.524.8573 (direct)
> 443-506.2400 (cell)
> www.xlhealth.com
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Cornetet [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 5:04 PM
> To: NT System Admin Issues
> Subject: RE: File Services Clustering in Server 2012
>
> Why in the world would you use a Microsoft cluster when you have the vastly
> superior and easier ESX clustering to provide failover?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Hasenjager [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 4:33 PM
> To: NT System Admin Issues
> Subject: File Services Clustering in Server 2012
>
> We are just getting into clustering services, now that we have been allowed
> to purchase a SAN (we have only been asking for more years than I can
> count!). I created a failover cluster in Server 2012 Standard and attached 4
> nodes to it (all virtuals with VMware ESXi 5.1 - the same problem exists
> whether 1 node is connected or up to all 4). They are connected to common
> LUNs on a NetApp appliance.
>
> Yesterday, everything went to hell. It started off that I could not access
> one of the file shares and then two... then all 4 that we had configured.
> Because this system was not yet being utilized for anyone other than myself,
> I decided to just recreate it. Now that I have done that, I cannot configure
> any file shares.
>
> When I click the "Add File Share" to the cluster role (File Server), the
> "volumes" is blank and I cannot use the browse button. I can type a path,
> but it states that it is not valid for the particular server. According to
> the console, everything is "Running" and "Online." I also cannot access the
> administrative share for the drive which is attached to the role.
>
> I am at a complete loss for ideas and Internet searches have turned up
> absolutely nothing regarding the problem I am having. I'm sure I am missing
> something simple, but cannot come up with what that is. Can anyone assist
> me? Feel free to contact me off-list if it is more convenient.
>
>
>
> PATRICK HASENJAGER | Network Administrator Kansas City University of
> Medicine and Biosciences | Information Technology phone 816.654.7712 |
> fax 816.654.7701 email [email protected] | www.kcumb.edu
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