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applicatiOn SerViceS

VMw a r e Fa u l t to l e r a n c e

VMware Fault Tolerance (FT) provides zero downtime and zero data loss availability for all

virtual machines during server hardware failures. When FT is enabled for a speciﬁc virtual

machine, a secondary copy of that virtual machine runs in lockstep synchronization on another

ESX host. This allows instantaneous, stateful failover between the two virtual machines and

eliminates any disruption because of hardware failures on either host. FT does not support cer-

tain vSphere features and will display the warning shown in Figure 1.14 when you attempt to

enable it.

VMw a r e da t a re c o V e r y

VMware Data Recovery (VDR) provides a simple and easy-to-deploy disk-based backup and

restore solution for protecting your virtual environment. VDR is deployed as a virtual appliance

and does not require you to install any agents inside virtual machines. You back up and restore

entire virtual machines and do not worry about the guest operating system or application run-

ning inside. It is integrated with VMware vCenter Server to provide a centralized user interface

to manage your virtual machine backup and recovery jobs. VDR leverages virtual machine

snapshots to make a precise copy in a short amount of time and also uses data deduplication tech-

nology to save on disk storage. VDR also supports Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to enable

consistent backups of virtual machines running Microsoft operating systems and applications.

Depending on your business service-level agreements (SLAs) for Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

and Recovery Point Objective (RPO), VDR can assist you in creating the perfect backup and recov-

ery solution for your business organization. We discuss how you can use VDR in more detail in

Chapter 2.

hi g h aV a i l a b i l i t y cl u S t e r i n g w i t h wi n d o w S Se r V e r 2003 a n d 2008

vSphere supports Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) with Windows 2003 and Failover Clustering

for Windows 2008. Clustering is supported with both 32-bit and 64-bit guests. Booting from

SAN virtual machines is supported as well. vSphere also supports Majority Node Set clusters

with application-level replication, such as Exchange 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR).

The serial attached SCSI (SAS) virtual device introduced as part of vSphere virtual hardware

version 7 is required to support Failover Clustering conﬁguration for Windows Server 2008 and

R2 versions. Later chapters in this book will cover setting up Failover Clustering for Windows

Server 2008 R2 and will demonstrate how to use this device.

VMware provides a separate guide to detail the setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft

TIP

Cluster Service. The guide is available at www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_

u1_mscs.pdf.

Figure 1.14

VMware FT

warning

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