6.0.1
Table Of Contents
- vSphere Availability
- Contents
- About vSphere Availability
- Updated Information
- Business Continuity and Minimizing Downtime
- Creating and Using vSphere HA Clusters
- Providing Fault Tolerance for Virtual Machines
- Index
Test Restart Secondary
You can induce the failure of a Secondary VM to test the Fault Tolerance protection provided for a selected
Primary VM.
This option is unavailable (dimmed) if the virtual machine is powered off.
Procedure
1 In the vSphere Web Client, browse to the Primary VM for which you want to conduct the test.
2 Right-click the virtual machine and select Fault Tolerance > Test Restart Secondary.
3 View details about the test in the Task Console.
This task results in the termination of the Secondary VM that provided Fault Tolerance protection for the
selected Primary VM. A new Secondary VM is started, placing the Primary VM back in a Protected state.
Upgrade Hosts Used for Fault Tolerance
Use the following procedure to upgrade hosts used for Fault Tolerance.
Prerequisites
Verify that you have cluster administrator privileges.
Verify that you have sets of four or more ESXi hosts that are hosting fault tolerant virtual machines that are
powered on. If the virtual machines are powered off, the Primary and Secondary VMs can be relocated to
hosts with different builds.
NOTE This upgrade procedure is for a minimum four-node cluster. The same instructions can be followed
for a smaller cluster, though the unprotected interval will be slightly longer.
Procedure
1 Using vMotion, migrate the fault tolerant virtual machines off of two hosts.
2 Upgrade the two evacuated hosts to the same ESXi build.
3 Suspend Fault Tolerance on the Primary VM.
4 Using vMotion, move the Primary VM for which Fault Tolerance has been suspended to one of the
upgraded hosts.
5 Resume Fault Tolerance on the Primary VM that was moved.
6 Repeat Step 1 to Step 5 for as many fault tolerant virtual machine pairs as can be accommodated on the
upgraded hosts.
7 Using vMotion, redistribute the fault tolerant virtual machines.
All ESXi hosts in a cluster are upgraded.
Best Practices for Fault Tolerance
To ensure optimal Fault Tolerance results, you should follow certain best practices.
The following recommendations for host and networking configuration can help improve the stability and
performance of your cluster.
Chapter 3 Providing Fault Tolerance for Virtual Machines
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