6.5
Table Of Contents
- Administrator Guide
- Contents
- About This Book
- Introduction
- Configuring vCenter Server Heartbeat
- Server Protection
- Checking the Server Pair Status
- Monitoring the Status of Servers
- Configuring Heartbeat Settings
- Network Protection
- Application Protection
- Applications: Summary Tab
- Resetting the Application Health Status
- Viewing Application Status
- Setting the Application Timeout Exception
- Remove an Application
- Manually Stop and Start Applications
- Configuring Applications
- Application Maintenance Mode
- Reviewing the State of an Application
- Reviewing the Applications Log
- Filtering Application Log Entries
- Applications: Services Tab
- Applications: Tasks Tab
- Applications: Plug-ins Tab
- Applications: Summary Tab
- Status and Control
- About vCenter Server Heartbeat Console
- Working with Groups
- Working with Pairs in vCenter Server Heartbeat Groups
- Reviewing the Status of vCenter Server Heartbeat Groups and Pairs
- Exiting vCenter Server Heartbeat Console
- Shutting Down Windows Without Stopping vCenter Server Heartbeat
- Controlled Shutdown
- vSphere Web Client Plug-in
- Uninstalling vCenter Server Heartbeat
- Performance Protection
- Data Protection
- Alerts and Events
- Troubleshooting
- Two Active or Two Passive Servers
- Synchronization Failures
- Registry Status is Out-of-Sync
- Channel Drops
- Performance Issues
- Passive Server Does Not Meet Minimum Hardware Requirements
- Hardware or Driver Issues on VMware Channel NICs
- Firewall Connection
- Channel Fails to Connect After Configuring Firewall Ports
- Incorrect VMware Channel Configuration
- VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat Packet Filter Is Enabled on the Channel NIC(s)
- Subnet or Routing Issues
- MaxDiskUsage Errors
- Application Slowdown
- Glossary
vCenter Server Heartbeat intercepts all le system I/O operations on the active server. If the intercepted write
and update operations are within the protected set, these are placed in a queue on the active server referred
to as the active server’s “Send Queue”, pending transmission to the passive server. Each request is numbered
to maintain its order in the queue. With the request in the active server’s send queue, vCenter Server Heartbeat
allows the disk I/O to continue with the requested disk operation.
If the channel is connected, the active server’s send queue is transferred to the passive server, which places all
the requests in the passive server’s “Receive Queue”. The passive server conrms the changes were logged by
sending the active server an acknowledgment. The active server then clears the data from its queue.
Figure 1- 3. Apply Process
The apply process running on the passive server’s receive queue applies all updates in strict sequence,
duplicating an identical set of le operations on the passive server as illustrated in Figure 1-3.
vCenter Server Heartbeat Communications
The VMware Channel is a crucial component of the setup and can be congured in a number of ways.
vCenter Server Heartbeat supports installation using either multiple network interface connections (NICs), (1
congured for the VMware Channel) and (1 congured with the Principal(Public) and Management IP
addresses), or a single NIC congured with the VMware Channel IP, Principal (Public) IP, and Management
IP. Both the Primary and Secondary servers must have the same number of NICs. The Principal (Public) IP
address provides client access and the Management IP address provides administrative access, while the
VMware Channel provides for data transfer and control.
A second pair of NICs for the VMware Channel can be used to provide a degree of redundancy. In this
conguration, the VMware Channel has a dual channel if more than one dedicated NIC is provided for the
VMware Channel on each server. To provide added resilience, the communications for the second channel
should be completely independent from the rst channel. They should not share any switches, virtual switches,
routers or the same WAN connection.
VMware, Inc. 13
Chapter 1 Introduction