Know Your Uptime - Differences Between VMware FT and HA PDF

6/23/2014 Know your uptime: Differences between VMware FT and HA
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Know your uptime: Differences between VMware FT
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Know your uptime: Differences between VMware FT and HA
Know your uptime: Differences between VMware FT and
HA
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VMware Fault Tolerance is a high-availability feature that can be used within a VMware High Availability cluster. However, high
availability is not synonymous with fault tolerance; there are meaningful differences between the two terms. Each setup requires
different available resources and will affect virtual machines differently.
Knowing your company's uptime and data recovery needs is the first step to determining if you need high availability, fault tolerance or
none of the above. The next step is understanding the system requirements of VMware FT and HA and how each product works.
The resources presented in this guide to VMware FT and HA will help you understand your options, with some real-world use cases to
compare to your IT infrastructure and needs. Once you've perused the guide, test your knowledge of VMware HA and FT in our pop
quiz.
Table of contents:
Where VMware FT and HA differ
New product features in VMware FT and HA
Tips and tricks for VMware FT and HA
Where VMware FT and HA differ
Share 1
The key difference between VMware's Fault Tolerance (FT) and High Availability (HA) products is interruption to virtual
machine (VM) operation in the event of an ESX/ESXi host failure. Fault-tolerant systems instantly transition to a new host,
whereas high-availability systems will see the VMs fail with the host before restarting on another host.
VMware High Availability
VMware High Availability should be used to maintain uptime on important but non-mission-critical VMs. While HA cannot prevent VM
failure, it will get VMs back up and running with very little disturbance to the virtual infrastructure. Consider the value of HA for host
failures that occur in the early hours of the morning, when IT is not immediately available to resolve the problem.
In addition to tending to VMs during ESX/ESXi host failure, VMware High Availability can monitor and restart a VM, ensuring the
machine is capable of restarting on a new host with enough resources.
VMware Fault Tolerance
VMware vSphere Fault Tolerance has been around since 2009. If your company cannot withstand downtime for end users, VMware FT
or a similar tool is required. Don't use FT for load balancing -- its role is protecting VMs when an ESX server goes down.
How does VMware FT work?
VMware FT instantly moves VMs to a new host via vLockstep, which keeps a secondary VM in sync with the primary, ready to take
over at any second, like a Broadway understudy. The VM's instructions and instruction sequence are the actor's lines, which pass to the
understudy on a dedicated server backbone network. Heartbeats ping between the star and understudy on this backbone as well, for
instantaneous detection of a failure.
How and when to use VMware FT
So your company's IT resources are mission-critical, and unplanned downtime is out of the question. Ramp up fault tolerance tools and
you're done right? Not so fast. VMware FT has stringent hardware requirements to take into account when requisitioning server
hardware. Before you plan a fault-tolerant virtualized environment, check out your options for when and where to use FT.
New product features in VMware FT and HA
With a major overhaul to HA in vSphere 5 and murmurs of a soon-to-be-released new feature, we share some key points to
know about VMware FT and HA road maps.
What's new? Faster failover in VMware HA, but no FT for SMP
VMware is planning a new high-availability design for release in 2013, called Virtual Machine Component Protection. Choosing a VM
within a host to vMotion according to specific failover conditions improves failover.
Unlike HA, VMware FT uses synchronous replication to prevent any service interruption in the event of a VM failure. Mission-critical
applications need fault tolerance, but despite user interest, FT for symmetric multiprocessing systems (SMP) seems stuck in a VMware
preview purgatory.
High availability in a heartbeat
VMware instituted new intelligence for High Availability in vSphere 5. If the master cluster becomes unavailable or orphaned from the
network, an election process takes over to prevent false-positive failovers. If a host becomes orphaned from the cluster in vSphere 5's
HA, the storage network is available as backup. The admin can choose their heartbeat data stores in the HA Clustering dialog boxes.
Goodbye Legato, hello Fault Domain Manager
VMware also revamped the HA architecture in vSphere 5. Fault Domain Manager (FDM) took over for Legato Automated Availability
Manager software, which was frustratingly complex. Now, admins have one master server, with all other servers in the HA cluster waiting
in the wings to help in the event of a failure. If you're switching to vSphere 5 from an older version, make sure you have at least two
shared data stores between all hosts in the HA cluster. What other changes can you expect? Heartbeats, simpler log and configuration
files, and installs in under a minute, thanks to FDM.
The nitty gritty of vSphere 5's HA and FT setup
With the move from Legato to FDM comes major HA architecture changes, even if the "look and feel" will be familiar to legacy users.
Learn the responsibilities of Master and Slave hosts in a cluster. This tip also covers important tips for using FT now that it is properly
compatible with VMware's Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS).
Coming soon to VMware FT and HA
In video footage from a VMware User Group (VMUG) meeting in Italy, VMware CTO Steve Herrod discussed plans for the company's
products, including Fault Tolerance with SMP support and native application-awareness for High Availability.
Tips and tricks for VMware FT and HA
Check out these real-world scenarios for VMware HA and FT implementation to better understand how and why you will use
either tool.
How to configure a VMware HA cluster
VMware HA cluster hosts must be configured exactingly for failovers to occur as planned. Before implementing VMware HA, consider
performing a test of HA capabilities on a virtual machine, run through the list of cluster requirements and learn about the common problem
of a host in a cluster failing during configuration.
HA experiences from the field
VMware HA is not a 100% uptime tool, as described in the comparison of VMware HA and FT. If you aren't sure whether HA offers
the right amount of uptime support for your infrastructure, check out these real-world examples of VMware HA in action.
What to do when good HA goes bad
If your infrastructure runs VI3-based HA, there are several situations where VMware HA can fail or run into communication issues. You
might be creating these situations just by growing your IT infrastructure. Follow these tips to prevent or resolve HA issues, and determine
if HA is for you.
Use cases for VMware FT
Are you using VMware HA and the current edition of vSphere, but users are demanding 100% application availability? Do critical
application servers within your organization have a single point of failure? Each organization's reasons for implementing fault tolerance may
be different, but these five general use cases offer guidance on whether you need FT now or in the future.
Back to top
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Each month our team of expert editors addresses the changing role of IT by helping
savvy technology professionals navigate both the technical and cultural challenges
wrought by vendor-hype, user-demands, and technology requirements.
DOWNLOAD THIS MONTHS E-ZINE ISSUE NOW!
Premium
Editorial
E-Books
Server capacity planning gets an overhaul
Choosing performance monitoring tools
Data center performance monitoring: Servers and beyond
View All E-Books
E-Zines
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View All E-Zines
E-Handbooks
As virtual machine migrations accelerate, don't get left behind
Choose storage that's smart enough for virtual environments
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View All E-Handbooks
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Topics
Topics
VMware cl oud
Using VMware cloud computing tools, Creating and managing a cloud architecture
VMware desktop software and desktop vi rtual i zati on
VMware View, VMware Workstation, Fusion and Player, VMware Server
VMware i nfrastructure management servi ces
DRS and DPM, VMware High Availability and Fault Tolerance, vMotion and Storage vMotion, VMware backup
VMware i ni ti ati ves and new rel eases
VMware new releases and updates, VMworld conference coverage, VMware for mobile
VMware ESX and ESXi admi ni strati ve ti ps
Creating and upgrading VMware servers and VMs, VMware performance enhancements, Using monitoring and
performance tools with VMware, Scripting administrative tasks, Troubleshooting VMware products, Remote
administrative options, Backing up VMware host servers and guest OSes, Securing a VMware environment, VMware
basics
Data center archi tecture for VMware ESX and ESXi
Selecting storage and hardware, VMware and networking
VMware certi fi cati ons and trai ni ng
VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX), VMware Certified Professional (VCP and VCAP), VMware how-tos,
VMware training videos and mediacasts
Hot Topics
VMware ESX and ESXi administrative tips
VMware cloud
VMware initiatives and new releases
Tutorials
Advice & Tutorials
Considering a VMware vSphere 5 upgrade?
Upgrading to ESXi 5: VMwares latest hypervisor
architecture
ESX and ESXi security features and best practices
VMware virtualization techniques on a shoestring
Know your uptime: Differences between VMware FT
and HA
Master VMware identity authentication strategies
Must-know vSphere 5.1 features for VMware admins
Applying vSphere network and vSwitch settings for a
secure data center
Comparing the VMware vMA and other ESXi
management tools
Extreme makeover: VMware end-user computing
edition
VMware Type-2 hypervisor comparison:
Workstation vs. Player vs. Fusion
Technology Dictionary
Find definitions and links to technical resources
Powered by WhatIs.com
Expert
Advice
Tips
Righting a wrong vSphere network configuration
View All Tips
Answers
Trust but verify Distributed Power Management capabilities
How to avoid alarms when using Distributed Power Management
How Distributed Power Management squeezes out more savings
View All Answers
Ask a Question
Get help from our technical community
Powered By ITKnowledgeExchange.com
Vendor
Content
Research Library
White Papers
Business Webcasts
Downloads
Powered by
Bitpipe.com
Blogs
Blogs
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Room
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