6.5.1
Table Of Contents
- vSphere Availability
- Contents
- About vSphere Availability
- Business Continuity and Minimizing Downtime
- Creating and Using vSphere HA Clusters
- Providing Fault Tolerance for Virtual Machines
- vCenter High Availability
- Plan the vCenter HA Deployment
- Configure the Network
- Configure vCenter HA With the Basic Option
- Configure vCenter HA With the Advanced Option
- Manage the vCenter HA Configuration
- Set Up SNMP Traps
- Set Up Your Environment to Use Custom Certificates
- Manage vCenter HA SSH Keys
- Initiate a vCenter HA Failover
- Edit the vCenter HA Cluster Configuration
- Perform Backup and Restore Operations
- Remove a vCenter HA Configuration
- Reboot All vCenter HA Nodes
- Change the Appliance Environment
- Collecting Support Bundles for a vCenter HA Node
- Troubleshoot Your vCenter HA Environment
- Patching a vCenter High Availability Environment
- Using Microsoft Clustering Service for vCenter Server on Windows High Availability
- Index
Table 4‑3. vCenter HA Cluster Modes of Operation
Mode
Automatic
Failover
Manual
Failover Replication
Enabled Yes Yes Yes This default mode of operation
protects the
vCenter Server Appliance from
hardware and software failures by
performing automatic failover.
Maintenance No Yes Yes Used for some maintenance tasks.
For other tasks, you have to disable
vCenter HA.
Disabled No No No If the Passive or Witness nodes are
lost or recovering from a failure, a
vCenter HA conguration can be
disabled. The Active node continues
as a standalone
vCenter Server Appliance.
N If the cluster is operating in either Maintenance or Disabled mode, an Active node can continue
serving client requests even if the Passive and Witness nodes are lost or unreachable.
Prerequisites
Verify that the vCenter HA cluster is deployed and contains the Active, Passive, and Witness nodes.
Procedure
1 Log in to the Active node vCenter Server Appliance with the vSphere Web Client and click .
2 Under select vCenter HA and click Edit.
3 Select one of the options.
Option Result
Enable vCenter HA Enables replication between the Active and Passive nodes. If the cluster is in a healthy
state, your Active node is protected by automatic failover from the Passive node.
Maintenance Mode In maintenance mode, replication still occurs between the Active and Passive nodes.
However, automatic failover is disabled.
Disable vCenter HA Disables replication and failover. Keeps the conguration of the cluster. You can later
enable vCenter HA again.
Remove vCenter HA
cluster
Removes the cluster. Replication and failover no longer are provided. The Active node
continues to operate as a standalone vCenter Server Appliance. See “Remove a vCenter
HA Conguration,” on page 72 for details.
4 Click OK.
Perform Backup and Restore Operations
For additional security, you can back up the Active node in the vCenter HA cluster. You can then restore the
node in case of catastrophic failure.
N Remove the cluster conguration before you restore the Active node. Results are unpredictable if you
restore the Active node and the Passive node is still running or other cluster conguration is still in place.
Chapter 4 vCenter High Availability
VMware, Inc. 71