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vMSC for 6.0, any new recommendations?

Duncan Epping · Apr 15, 2015 ·

I am currently updating the vSphere Metro Storage Cluster best practices white paper, over the last two weeks I received various questions if there were any new recommendation for vMSC for 6.0. I have summarized the recommendations below for your convenience, the white paper is being reviewed and I am updating screenshots, hopefully will be done soon.

  • In order to allow vSphere HA to respond to both an APD and a PDL condition vSphere HA needs to be configured in a specific way. VMware recommends enabling VM Component Protection. After the creation of the cluster VM Component Protection needs to be enabled.
  • The configuration for PDL is basic. In the “Failure conditions and VM response” section it can be configured what the response should be after a PDL condition is detected. VMware recommends setting this to “Power off and restart VMs”. When this condition is detected a VM will be restarted instantly on a healthy host within the vSphere HA cluster.
  • When an APD condition is detected a timer is started. After 140 seconds the APD condition is officially declared and the device is marked as APD time out. When the 140 seconds has passed HA will start counting, the default HA time out is 3 minutes. When the 3 minutes has passed HA will restart the impacted virtual machines, but you can configure VMCP to respond differently if desired. VMware recommends configuring it to “Power off and restart VMs (conservative)”.
    • Conservative refers to the likelihood of HA being able to restart VMs. When set to “conservative” HA will only restart the VM that is impacted by the APD if it knows another host can restart it. In the case of “aggressive” HA will try to restart the VM even if it doesn’t know the state of the other hosts, which could lead to a situation where your VM is not restarted as there is no host that has access to the datastore the VM is located on.
  • It is also good to know that if the APD is lifted and access to the storage is restored before the time-out has passed that HA will not unnecessarily restart the virtual machine, unless you explicitly configure it do so. If a response is desired even when the environment has recovered from the APD condition then “Response for APD recovery after APD timeout” should be configured to “Reset VMs”. VMware recommends leaving this setting disabled.

Related

Server 6.0, stretched cluster, vmsc, VMware, vSphere

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Joseph Griffiths says

    15 April, 2015 at 16:55

    So glad that component protection has been added. Thanks for the quick note.

  2. Philip Coakes says

    15 April, 2015 at 23:23

    Duncan; does this latest update to vMSC for 6.0 whitepapers mean that an updated Clustering Deepdive is imminent?

    • Duncan Epping says

      16 April, 2015 at 15:38

      It may just be… who knows 😉

      • Jon says

        22 April, 2015 at 13:24

        Arrg!

  3. Jake says

    15 May, 2015 at 16:49

    Any update on this whitepaper? In the middle of an XtremIO/VPLEX/vSPhere 6 vMSC and want to get it right! thanks!

    • Duncan Epping says

      15 May, 2015 at 18:07

      Been on a holiday for a couple of weeks, so the paper is delayed. No ETA at the moment.

      • Sim says

        1 June, 2015 at 11:15

        Hello Duncan

        Was just wondering if there is any update to this whitepaper.
        I’m currently going to start implementation of Vmetro using Left Hands and your expertise is always welcome.

        • Duncan Epping says

          2 June, 2015 at 12:12

          Should be out in two weeks I have been told. But no guarantees.

  4. Tom Otomanski says

    22 June, 2015 at 12:21

    Hi Duncan

    Is the below still valid in v6?

    http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2013/11/08/disable-disk-autoremoveonpdl-vmsc-environment/

    • Duncan Epping says

      22 June, 2015 at 14:14

      Yes it is

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About the author

Duncan Epping is a Chief Technologist in the Office of CTO of the Cloud Platform BU at VMware. He is a VCDX (# 007), the author of the "vSAN Deep Dive", the “vSphere Clustering Technical Deep Dive” series, and the host of the "Unexplored Territory" podcast.

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