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Table Of Contents
Figure 13. Clustering Multiple Virtual Machines Across Hosts
physical
machine
physical
machine
VM1
VM3
VM5
VM7
VM2
VM4
VM6
VM8
1
3
5
7
2
4
6
8
Clustering Physical Machines with Virtual Machines
For a simple MSCS clustering solution with low hardware requirements, you might choose to have one
standby host.
Set up your system to have a virtual machine corresponding to each physical machine on the standby
host, and create clusters, one each for each physical machine and its corresponding virtual machine. In
case of hardware failure in one of the physical machines, the virtual machine on the standby host can
take over for that physical host.
The following figure shows a standby host using three virtual machines on a single physical machine.
Each virtual machine is running clustering software.
Figure 14. Clustering Physical and Virtual Machines
physical
machine
virtual
machine
cluster
software
virtual
machine
cluster
software
virtual
machine
cluster
software
cluster
software
cluster
software
cluster
software
Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service
VMware, Inc. 9