6.5.1

Protecting the vCenter Server Appliance with vCenter High
Availability
vCenter High Availability (vCenter HA) protects not only against host and hardware failures but also
against vCenter Server application failures. Using automated failover from active to passive, vCenter HA
supports high availability with minimal downtime.
vCenter HA Deployment Options
vCenter HA protects your vCenter Server Appliance. However, Platform Services Controller provides
authentication, certicate management, and licenses for the vCenter Server Appliance. As a result, you have
to guarantee high availability of Platform Services Controller. You have these options.
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Deploy an Active node with an embedded Platform Services Controller. As part of the cloning process,
the Platform Services Controller and all is services are cloned as well. As part of synchronization from
Active node to Passive node, Platform Services Controller on the Passive node is updated.
When failover from the Active node to the Passive node occurs, the Platform Services Controller on the
passive node are available and the complete environment is available.
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Deploy at least two Platform Services Controller instances and place them behind a load balancer.
When failover from the Active node to the Passive node occurs, the Passive node continues to point to
the load balancer. When one of the Platform Services Controller instances becomes unavailable, the load
balancer directs requests to the second Platform Services Controller instance.
See “vCenter HA Deployment Options,” on page 60.
vCenter HA Configuration Options
You congure vCenter HA from the vSphere Web Client. The conguration wizard provides these options.
Option Description
Basic The Basic option clones the Active node to the Passive node and witness node, and congures the nodes for
you.
If your environment meets one the following requirements, you can use this option.
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Either the vCenter Server Appliance that becomes the Active node is managing its own ESXi host and its
own virtual machine. This conguration is sometimes called a self-managed vCenter Server.
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Or the vCenter Server Appliance managed by another vCenter Server (management vCenter Server) and
both vCenter Server instances are in the same vCenter Single Sign-On domain. That means they both use
an external Platform Services Controller and both are running vSphere 6.5.
See “Congure vCenter HA With the Basic Option,” on page 64.
Advanced The Advanced option oers more exibility. You can use this option provided that your environment meets
hardware and software requirements.
If you select this option, you are responsible for cloning the Active node to the Passive node and the Witness
node. You must also perform some networking conguration.
See “Congure vCenter HA With the Advanced Option,” on page 65.
Protecting vCenter Server with VMware Service Lifecycle Manager
Availability of vCenter Server is provided by VMware Service Lifecycle Manager.
If a vCenter service fails, VMware Service Lifecycle Manager restarts it. VMware Service Lifecycle Manager
monitors the health of services and it takes precongured remediation action when it detects a failure.
Service does not restart if multiple aempts to remediate fail.
vSphere Availability
10 VMware, Inc.