Vcap-Dca Objective 4.2 – Deploy And Test Vmware Ft

Front 1

Identify VMware FT hardware requirements

Back 1

Basically, check the VMware Compatibility guide to make sure the hosts and processors are supported.

At a high level:

Both hosts that are hosting the FT virtual machines must have processors in the same family and be within +/- 400 MHz of each other.

The hosts must also be certified for FT use.

The hosts must support hardware virtualization and it must be enabled in the BIOS.

If your hosts are part of a vSphere cluster, you can check the Profile Compliance tab for the cluster to determine if they are compatible with FT.

Front 2

Identify VMware FT compatibility requirements: Cluster & Host Requirements

Back 2

Availability Guide, pages 38

Cluster Requirements

Both hosts participating in FT must have access to the same datastores that the FT virtual machine resides on.

Host certificate checking must be enabled.

FT logging and vMotion networks must be configured.

The hosts must be part of an HA enabled cluster.

Front 3

Identify VMware FT compatibility requirements: Virtual Machine Requirements

Back 3

Availability Guide, pages 39

Virtual machine files must be on storage that both hosts have access to.

The FT virtual machine cannot have more than 1 vCPU

Ensure the virtual machine is running a supported guest operating system. Guest operating systems that are NOT supported:
Windows 7
Windows Server 2003 (32-bit)
Windows XP (32-bit)
Windows 2000
Windows NT 4.0
Solaris 10 (64-bit)
Solaris 10 (32-bit)

Front 4

Identify VMware FT compatibility requirements: vSphere Compatibility Requirements/Incompatible Features and Devices

Back 4

Availability Guide, pages 39-40

VMs that are provisioned as a linked clone are not supported for FT.

Storage vMotion is not supported on FT virtual machines (must disable FT to perform an svMotion and then re-enable)

If you are using an application that leverages VADP (API for data protection) to backup your virtual machines then you won't be able to enable FT on it.

You cannot snapshot an FT virtual machine.

You can't use SMP, only 1 vCPU

The FT virtual machine cannot have an RDM.

Virtual CD-Rom/floppy drives cannot be backed by a physical or remote passthrough device.

Paravirtualization, NPIV, USB and sound devices, NIC passthrough, hot pluggable devices, extended page tables, rapid virtualization indexing, serial or parellel ports, and 3D video devices are all not supported for FT.

Thin-provisioned disks will try to be expanded automatically when using FT, but the VM must be powered off.

Front 5

Enable Host Certificate Checking

Back 5

Availability Guide, page 41

1. Click on Administration and select vCenter Server Settings.
2. Click SSL Settings.
3. Ensure that "vCenter requires verified host SSL certificates" checkbox is checked.

Front 6

Modify host settings to allow for FT compatibility

Back 6

Availability Guide, page 47

Configure the proper networking on each host. You will need at least two physical 1 Gb NICs.

Configure one vSwitch or port group on physical NIC for vMotion and create another vSwitch or port group with the other physical NIC for FT logging.

Ensure that the hosts you are using for FT are at the same vSphere build.

Configure shared storage for the hosts. The hosts that will be hosting the FT VMs need to have access to the storage in which the FT virtual machine's files are located

Front 7

Modify VM settings to allow for FT compatibility

Back 7

Availability Guide, page 44

No snapshots
Only 1 vCPU
No physical raw device mappings (RDMs)

Front 8

Use VMware best practices to prepare a vSphere environment for FT

Back 8

Your hosts should run +/- 400 MHz as it relates to CPU frequency.

Ensure your hosts are running the same CPU instruction sets (typically enabled/disabled in the systems BIOS)

Use 10 GbE NICs and enable jumbo frames for FT logging.

Store any required ISO files on a datastore both hosts have access to.

Avoid network partitions make (make management network redundant between separate switches).

No more than four FT virtual machines on a single ESXi host. Total should include both primary and secondary VMs.

Allocate excess memory to the resource pool that contains the FT virtual machines. This allows for overhead memory (a reservation is automatically set to the configured memory amount when you enable FT, and the excess memory will allow for overhead should the FT VM utilize the configured amount of memory).

Do not used more than 16 virtual disks per FT virtual machine.

Have at least three hosts in a cluster. This allows for N+1 should a host fail, another one in the cluster will be there to allow for the creation of a secondary VM.

When using NFS, have at least one 1 Gb NIC on the NAS hardware side.

Front 9

Best practices for performing host upgrades when using FT

Back 9

1. vMotion both the primary and secondary FT virtual machines off of the two hosts that you will be upgrading.

NOTE: If you only have three hosts in your cluster, instead disable FT and re-enable it after host upgrades/patching.

2. Upgrade the two host you moved the FT VMs off of.
3. On the primary VM, turn off FT.
4. vMotion the primary VM back to one of the newly upgraded hosts.
5. Turn FT back on.

Front 10

Configure FT Logging

Back 10

Availability Guide, pages 41 -42

From Inventory -> Hosts and Clusters

1. Select a host.
2. Click the Configuration tab.
3. Under Hardware, click on Networking
4. Click the Properties link for the switch you will be using for FT logging.
5. Click the Add button, select VMkernel, click Next.
6. Enter a network label such as "FT Logging"
7. Check the "Use this port group for Fault Tolerance logging" and click Next.
8. Enter in the IP address and subnet mask, click Next.
9. Click Finish.

Front 11

Prepare the infrastructure for FT compliance

Back 11

Availability Guide, pages 43, 46

From Inventory -> Hosts and Clusters

1. Select an HA-enabled cluster.
2. Click on the Profile Compliance tab.
3. Click the Check Compliance Now hyperlink.
4. Ensure that the Compliance Status is marked as Compliant.
5. If not, go to the host(s) that is (are) Non-Compliant
6. Click the Summary tab
7, In the General pane, you will see "Host Configured for FT"; it will say either Yes or No and it has a small dialog icon next to it.
8. Click the dialog icon.
9. This will show you it the host does or does not meet FT requirements. If it does not, it will list the issues.

Front 12

Test FT failover, secondary restart , and application fault tolerance in a FT Virtual Machine

Back 12

Turn on fault tolerance on a VM

1. Right-click the virtual machine that you want to enable FT on (ensure that the virtual machine is POWERED OFF).
2. Click Fault Tolerance.
3. Select Turn On Fault Tolerance.
4. Click Yes on the message displayed.
5. Once complete, the icon for the virtual machine will be blue.
6. Right-click on the VM and select Power -> Power On.
7. Once it is powered on, click the VM.
8. In the fault tolerance pane, ensure that the Fault Tolerance Status shows as Protected.

Test FT Failover

1. Right-click on an FT protected VM.
2. Select Fault Tolerance and click Test Failover.

Test Secondary Restart

1. Right-click on an FT protected VM.
2. Select Fault Tolerance and click Test Restart Secondary.