Comments on: Best Practices: running vCenter virtual (vSphere)

By: Doug Youd

Doug Youd — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:23:03 +0000

What about the sizing of the database? I’ve been hunting for good sizing information of the VC DB server as we’re hitting performance and availability issues (due to DB locks) on our VC DB server.

Obviously VC provides a tool internally for determining VC DB size with a given stats level. But I haven’t been able to find out utilization guidelines for other metrics such as RAM and (v)CPU for the DB server(s).

Does anyone have any input or links they could suggest?

By: Simon Wilmann

Simon Wilmann — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:11:26 +0000

Is there any vmware doco supporting that virtual center supports and benefits from more than 2 vCPU? eg can it thread to more than 2?

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:15:30 +0000

FT only supports single vCPU VMs so far. Most environments where vCenter is critical will also probably need 2 vCPUs.

By: byuen

byuen — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:59:43 +0000

This question goes out to everyone who reads this: Why would you then want to spend the big bucks for vCenter Heartbeat if vSphere FT can also provide FT. Sure there are additioanl features with VC Heartbeat but is it worth that much more? Currently I have a failover VC that is offline. When needed, I just enable the services for VC and when I login to VC client I accept the changes and make this the primary VC again. I’m not sure how this works in vSphere but I will test it out.

By: byuen

byuen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:11:54 +0000

Can I also use the FT feature in vSphere for my Virtual Center server?

By: Duncan

Duncan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:38:48 +0000

Well the official minimum reqs are 2 vCPUs which would rule out vCenter immediately.

By: Ben Hinkle

Ben Hinkle — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:12:40 +0000

Would it be a wise choice to use Fault Tolerance on the vCenter VM?

I’m still unsure of the dependancies of FT on the availability of the vCenter server. If it’s only dependant on HA, that’s functional without the vCenter being operational isn’t it? So it would stand to reason that vCenter would benefit from FT.

By: Sean Clark

Sean Clark — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:05:10 +0000

Tomas,
If you only have vSphere Standard I would do the following to update your hosts. First, update all ESX hosts besides the one with vCenter VM. Once they are updated, you can shutdown the vCenter VM. Then log into other ESX hosts that already updated, browse the datastore containing the vCenter VM and ad it to inventory. Then power it on (answer question about moving the VM) then proceed with using Update Manager to update the last remaining ESX server that was previously hosting the vCenter VM. Having a SAN makes this possibly, of course.

I have also done a similar procedure without shared storage, but instead of simple re-registering on another host I would use Vizioncore vReplicator or Veeam Backup to move the vCenter VM between ESX hosts to facilitate use of Update Manager to update ESX hosts. It’s not pretty, but it works.

Holler if you have other small biz ESX questions. It’s where I spend most my time.

Sean Clark – Twitter: vSeanClark

By: Craig

Craig — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:15:56 +0000

Great post, but I can’t find the official statement from VMware about virtualizing the vCenter. Will VMware officially publish 1 for vsphere 4?

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:02:54 +0000

I have read that vMotioning a VM takes it ‘out’ of the automated startup routine etc.

Is there an ‘automatic’ way to reset the ‘automatic’ startup information for all the VMs in a host??

This is too easy to forget and one does occasionally have to vMotion one’s VC VM.

BTW I have VC in a VM in a 3-host cluster, never noticed any issues other than VI Client starts slow on my Vista box. Everything else works great.

Thank you, Tom