Automatic restart of VM in case of crash

[zavalkovsky]

I woudl like to implement a local HA functionality for my VMs. In the case of guest OS or application runnig on the VM crashes, I would like ot restart the VM to the last know good snapshot. I am think about the foillwoing functionality missing:

1. Automatic update creation of a  snapshort very 10 min.

2. Automatic restart of a VM in case of failure

3. A special agent communicating with the vShpere or the host to inform that the application not responding and need to be restarted.

Any tips on whether these functiomnality exists and where I can find more info will be highly appriciated.

Arthur

[mcowger]

Everything but the snapshot part is already part of AppHA in vSphere.

[zavalkovsky]

What is the name of the feature so I can find some info?

Thanks!

[Troy_Clavell]

zavalkovsky wrote:

What is the name of the feature so I can find some info?

Thanks!

This is part of HA called VM Monitoring (VM and Application Monitoring)

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vsp4-virtualize-biz-critical-apps.pdf

[DSTAVERT]

It is very important to understand snapshots and how they work. You may have some abilities within your SAN but VMware snapshots are for very short term use.

Snapshots
Best Practice http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1025279
Understanding http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015180

http://www.vmware.com/products/high-availability/overview.html

http://www.neverfailgroup.com/HighAvailability

There will some aditional capabilities in vSphere 5 that will leverage the Symantec product

http://www.symantec.com/High_Availability  

[zavalkovsky]

Thank you very much for all useful responces. Still one point is missing. Thge scenario I want to implement is as following:

- VM periodically (every 15 min) back up it state including memory

- Once VM or applications crashes, the VM is restarted from the latest backed up checkpoint.

Which technique should be used for such a backup/restore scenario?

Thank you

[James Bowling]

You will want to use something like Veeam Backup and Replication and setup replication of the VM.