Linux NFS HA server inside VMware

[jmsge]

what are best practices for reliability and performance for a Linux Cluster inside VMware?

requirement: highly available NFS share for application VM only. This is not intended to serve as vSphere storage.

The NFS Cluster VM placement on two separate hosts to protect from individual host failure.

VM Network design - dedicated vmkernel for NFS?

VM Storage - shared block storage required by Linux cluster. RDM LUN with virtual mapping ?

can vSphere FT be utilized to reduce the complexity of shared storage and Linux Cluster ?

[vHaridas]

Linux Server Performance - Make sure you have enough RAM, CPU resources for Linux VM, No resource contention.

Host failure - Create DRS VM-VM Affinity Rules, to keep both VMs running on different hosts.  ( assuming you ESXi HA/DRS cluster with shared storage )

>>VM Network design - dedicated vmkernel for NFS?

You don't need Vmkernel PortGroup for Linux NFS VMs server. You can create dedicated Vmkernel PortGroup for NFS if you are providing NFS storage to ESXi Host,

>>Shred Storage

Use Virtual Thick Provisioned Disk instead of RDM.

>>FT

You can use FT to keep VMs highly available but Check FT requirements/support for your vSphere versions before  selecting this option.

this will be lot easy option than Linux Clustering.

[jmsge]

shared storage:

Virtual Disk (thick) - VMFS may not be compatible.

AFAIK - Linux cluster (RedHat) requires RDM

[vHaridas]

Hi,

New rhel cluster packages does support vmdk disk.

For fenced device it may not support vmdk.