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Use Case Study: Using Active System For VMware Cluster Environment Configuration
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Once the settings are capture in the Host Profile, this profile can be applied to the other hosts in the
cluster. Keep in mind that some settings are still host-specific and you will be prompted to configure
these settings when you deploy the host profile to the host. For example, you will have to create
specific MAC Addresses, IQNs, and IP Addresses when you apply your host profile.
Once you apply the host profile to all of the servers in your cluster and they are all in compliance with
the profile, you are prepared to deploy virtual machines.
Deploying Virtual Machines
Once your cluster is created, your hosts have been added and configured, and your shared storage is
available to all hosts, you are ready to deploy virtual machines. In this case, an OVF file will be used.
This is a virtual machine image which has been previously created. To deploy your virtual machines,
you may choose to create the virtual machines and then deploy your operating system directly to the
virtual machines.
In this example, multiple OVF files will be deployed to the cluster. Active System Manager and vCenter
Server have both been configured to access VLANs 20 and 23 which will be the LAN access to the
network. The virtual machines will require access to both of these networks. To do this, add two vNIC
to each virtual machine. When configuring these adapters specify the VLAN or vSphere switch which
was created in the earlier section to enable the network connection for that adapter.
Expanding Cluster Capacity
After your initial cluster deployment, you may find that you want to add additional capacity to your
cluster. Active System Manager can help make this process easy by simply plugging additional servers
into your chassis, discovering these servers, and applying the necessary templates. Making use of Active
System Manager for this purpose makes adding capacity to your cluster quick and easy and ensures that
you add compatible, identically configured servers to your resource pool.
Glossary
Date Center Bridging (DCB) - DCB standards are enhancements to IEEE 802.1 bridge specifications to
support multiple protocols and applications in the data center. They support converged infrastructure
implementations to carry applications and protocols on a single physical infrastructure. IEEE DCB task
group: http://www.ieee802.org/1/pages/dcbridges.html
Link Aggregation (LAG) - used to bundle multiple individual physical network connections so that a
single logical link is created. This is typically used for combine two or more Ethernet links together to
provide increased throughput and a form of load balancing for when an individual link may get
saturated.
Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) - provides a method to control the bundling of several
physical ports together to form a single logical channel. LACP allows a network device to negotiate an
automatic bundling of links by sending LACP packets to the peer (directly connected device that also
implements LACP).
Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) – the largest size packet or frame that can be sent in a network