HA without shared storage

[eccl1213]

Hi everyone,

I have a client that requires an HA solution without shared storage. They are a security monitoring firm and regulations require that he have automatic failover but the machies must not share storage.

I'm having trouble finding a product that both replicates and monitors the ESX server to provide automatic failover. vReplicator doesn't have an auto-failover feature. VCenter HA and FT both require shared storage.

We even looked at two SAN's with replication, but even Site Recovery Manager is a manual fail-over process. Not to mention two sans for 3 virtual machines is a bit over kill. The three VM's would be very low utilization, two are a linux OS and one is Windows.

Any suggestions?

[vmkarthik]

The basic criteria for HA is shared storage.

To my knowledge there is NO workaround to this.

Hope you can make them understand that shared storage is not like a sharinga windows file....even in that you can get several layers of authentications....making it secure...

[eccl1213]

Yes, as far as vCenter HA goes, shared storage is required. What I'm looking for is a product that incorprates host based replication with a monitoring service that registers and starts the vm on a second host.

Maybe it doesn't exisit out there for ESX yet. Looking for somthing like DRBD or Double-take but on the ESX host level. We looked at double-take but they won't support Gentoo vm's...becuase they are not really host based, they replicate in the vm.

-M

[mjsvirt]

If you don't want to use shared storage, you might consider looking at virtual storage appliances (virtual ISCSI SANS). You can use the internal storage on your ESX hosts and turn it into an ISCSI SAN. With this, you will be able to use HA..

Check out FalconStor, Lefthand, Datacore, San Melody..

For host based replication also consider taking a look at the latest version of CA XOSOFT

Hope this helps

[vmkarthik]

Also you can try MSCS between two virtual machines from two diff physical host.....in this mode ven hostbased backup wont be a pblm....

[eccl1213]

MSCS is a tradtional cluster that requries shared storage, and doesn't work with linux vm's.

[eccl1213]

Hmmm, looks like these might do it. Some talk about network RAID1. But have few details on how it actually works. Eitherway, thats the best bet yet.

[vmkarthik]

Yes you are right MSCS also require shared storage. These are ideas which you can take up to provide HA against h/w as well as s/w failures.

[itkill3r]

hello just thought i would share you CAN get HA with out shared storage

first there are solution that use bit torrent technology along with vmware and synchronize your data with out ever sharing it between servers @ all but it has draw backs as syncs are not instantaniuos and there for you may lose data

Next there is VSAN virtual san technology that will allow you to turn your directly attached storage into a SAN as far as ESX is concerned here is a link to get you started

just thought you should know and there are a lot of people using this solution

[Sergio_E_]

Hi eccl1213,

You may find useful this HP solution,

http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/aio1200/index.html

it's an iSCSI SAN appliance, with replication capabilies and monitoring software (HP Storage Mirroring, altough is Double Take with some tweaks like VM replication).

Anyway, this solution should be labeled as "high availability-replacement", but in a different context (not the same as the VMware HA feature)

Hope it helps,

SE

[ConstantinV]

But iSCSI is shared storage ))))

Starwind Software Developer

[Sergio_E_]

Sorry,

I meant to have one iSCSI box for each server, and replication between both via HP Storage Mirroring... the thing I don't like is that maybe is an active-passive setup, which is not as cost-effective as "normal" VMware

HA...

Cheers,

SE

[tu_ha]

What's your OS, Application ? some applications have feature HA

for example : Exchange 2007 CCR, Oracle DataGuard, ... --> You don't need shared storage for HA.

-

---

Virtualization Technology in Vietnam

www.congngheaohoa.com

www.diendanaohoa.com

[tu_ha]

What's your OS, Application ? some applications have feature HA

for example : Exchange 2007 CCR, Oracle DataGuard, ... --> You don't need shared storage for HA.

-

---

Virtualization Technology in Vietnam

www.congngheaohoa.com

www.diendanaohoa.com

[rmagoon]

A virtual SAN appliance is still a SAN within a VM. Your data will still be sharing the same iSCSI targets within the virtual SAN appliance and therefore not meeting your requirements. If you're looking for HA within your VMs that don't require shared storage, you're limited to host-based replication (replication agents within the guest operating system). Each type of operating system/application will need to be addressed to determine the type of host-based replication solution. There are a ton of solutions out there to meet various OS/App requirements. Some will perform automatic failover, others will not. Some solutions that come to mind (for Windows) are VVR, Replistor, DoubleTake, and NeverFail.