VMworld 2013 Shawn Gordon, Neverfail Donna Reineck, VMware Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare

1. Protect vCenter Server with vCenter Server
Heartbeat Deep Dive
Shawn Gordon, Neverfail
Donna Reineck, VMware
VSVC5901
#VSVC5901

2. 2
Houston We Have a Problem!
Does your IT organization proactively plan for a vCenter Server
outage or will it look something like this?
???
???
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3. 3
Agenda
 Scope the problems
 How can vCenter Server Heartbeat help?
 Avoiding the pitfalls – plan, deploy, validate
 Common Deployment Use Cases
 Troubleshooting
 Q&A

4. 4
Scope the Problem #1 – Business Problem
 Does your IT Service Level Agreement (SLA) cover objectives for
virtual/cloud management software?
 How much does it cost when :
vCenter Server Single Sign-on or Inventory Service(s) crashed? Or
vCenter Server Backup software missed a 4 hour window of
scheduled backups on critical LOB application data because
vCenter Server crashed? Or
Unable to satisfy self-service workload provisioning and
placement requests?

5. 5
Scope the Problem #2 – Technical Problem
 vCloud Suite – Variable RTO and RPO definitions
 Multi-Site and GEO deployments
 Delivering high availability on tight budget
 Choosing the right solution to handle the job can be a challenge
125
235
125
88
7 12
0
100
200
300
1 5 10 50 100 More
#ofCustomer
# of VCs
# of Customer by # of VCs

6. 6
SSO
Scope the Problem #3 – vCenter Server Single Sign-on
 Let’s talk about the elephant in the room – identity services MUST
be highly available, but…… so does the rest of vCenter services

7. 7
Downtime Impact to vCenter Integrated Solutions
VMware vFabric®
Application Director
VMware® vCloud®
Automation Center
VMware vCloud
Networking and
Security™
VMware vCenter
Site Recovery
Manager™
VMware vCenter Server™
(SSO, HA, DRS/sDRS)
VMware vCenter
Orchestrator™
VMware Horizon View ™
VMware Data Protection™
VMware Horizon View
VMware Data Protection
VMware vCenter
Orchestrator
3rd Party
Web Client Plug-ins
VMware vFabric
Application Director
VMware vCenter
Operations
Management Suite
VMware vCloud
Automation Center
VMware vCenter
Site Recovery Manager
VMware Network and
Security

8. 8
“Under the Hood” Single vCenter Server Downtime Impact
What happens if….?
8
vCenter
Server
SSO
Server
Web Client Server
Inventory
Service
SQL Server
1. Inventory Server crashes?
No inventory view, or
object management
(e.g. Datacenter, clusters,
hosts, VMs)
2. Single Sign-On Crashes?
Solution Users and
Users are impacted!

9. 9
vCenter Server Heartbeat
A look inside the of vCenter Heartbeat
9

10. 10
How Can vCenter Server Heartbeat Help Solve the Problems?
First things first…what IS vCenter Server Heartbeat?
o Software-based
o Hardware Agnostic
o Storage Agnostic
o Mirrored Pair
o Fully Automated
o Single & Multi-Site
deployment modes

11. 11
Failure and Performance Detection Methods Built-in
Heartbeat messages between primary and secondary1
Hardware &
OS Failures
Network
Failures
Application
Failures
Application
Performance
Degradation
Polling default gateway, primary DNS, Global Catalog
Server at regular and custom intervals
2
Window service monitoring for vCenter and it’s
services to include SQL Server
Monitor a set of performance metrics for exceeded/
expected thresholds
3
4

12. 12
How vCenter Heartbeat Works – Basic View
Host OS
vCenter
Server
SSO
Server
Web Client
Server
Inventory
Service
Replication of
applications
Host OS
vCenter
Server
SSO
Server
Web Client
Server
Inventory
Service
vCenter
Services
Replication of
SQL DatabasesVC
SSO
VUM
SSO
VUM
VCvCenter
Inventory, Roles, Perm
(Primary/Active) (Secondary/Passive)
(Primary/Active) (Secondary/Passive)

13. 13
How does replication work in LAN vs. WAN?
How Does vCenter Heartbeat Protect Services and Data?

14. 14
3 – Strike Rule – Customizable rules
 3 Strike rule
• Recover Service (e.g. VPXd)
• Restart Application (e.g. vCenter)
• Failover (e.g. vCenter)

15. 15
More Than Just Failover….It’s Peak Performance
 Server side and User defined tasks
 Out of box rules

16. 16
How do Clients Communicate with Protected Services?
 Clients are both users and solutions
 All Clients connect via the Public FQDN:IP Address
Public: FQDN:IP
SSO
VC
VUM
SQL Server vCenter Heartbeat Plug-in VI Admin UI

17. 17
But…How do I Know What Services are Protected?
 Installation – Automated services discovery
 Post-Install – Management Console
New

18. 18
Avoiding the Pitfalls – Plan, Deploy, Validate

19. 19
Avoiding the Pitfalls – Planning
 Know your requirements
• High Availability (Single site)
• Disaster Recovery
• Recovery Time and Recovery Point Objectives (RTO/RPO)
 Gather data for new installations
• Choose the right installation guide (V2V, P2V, P2P)
• Follow the pre-install checklist
• KISS – Can you live with the defaults?
 Benchmark application restart times – know achievable RTO
• RTO constrained by solution (VC, IS, SSO, Web Client etc..) startup
• Leverage default application rules where possible

20. 20
Avoiding the Pitfalls – Planning continued…
 If Upgrading vCenter Server - start with vCenter Heartbeat Guide;
do NOT initiate upgrade using VUM or vCenter related processes?
 Disaster Recovery – Plan for 1Mbps or more available bandwidth
for replication performance

21. 21
Avoiding the Pitfalls – Deployment Best Practice #1
Avoid splitting services across host OS’s and networks (LAN and
WAN) that are latency sensitive under high load and scale
Host OS
vCenter
Server SSO
Server
Web Client
Server
Inventory
Service
Host OS
Inventory
Service
Host OS
Inventory
Service
Host OS
Host OS
vCenter
Server
SSO
Server
Web Client
Server
WAN
Site A Site B

22. 22
Avoid the Pitfalls – Multi-Site Deployment Best Practice #2
Single vCenter Server per site protected with vCenter Heartbeat
within single SSO Auth Domain
vCenter Server
vCenter
Server Basic
SSO
Server
Web Client
Inventory Svc
New York
vCenter Server
vCenter
Server Basic
SSO
Server
Web Client
Inventory Svc
Miami
vCenter Server
vCenter
Server Basic
SSO
Server
Web Client
Inventory Svc
Los Angeles

23. 23
Avoid the Pitfalls – Deployment Best Practice #3
 Best of both technologies
• vSphere HA – Single Site
• vCenter Heartbeat – Multi-Site
VI Resource Cluster
Site = xxxx
Primary - Passive
VI Resource Cluster
Site = xxxx
Secondary - Active
WANVMware Channel
Datastore Cluster
Datastore Cluster
VC
VC

24. 24
Validation and Troubleshooting
Designing vCenter Server with failure in mind

25. 25
Avoid the Pitfalls – Validate! Validate! Validate!
DO
• Automated failover
• Data verification
• Managed failover
DO NOT…..
• Pull the channel cable
• Power-off

26. 26
vCenter Heartbeat “Built to Ensure a Peaceful Nights Sleep”
 Spend the upfront time on pre/post installation
processes and avoid becoming a statistic
 Customer Service Requests (SRs) Analysis
• 48% of cases opened are related to Failover /
Switchover issues
• 32% of cases opened are Installation and Setup
• 8% of cases opened are Upgrades

27. 27
Troubleshooting Installation Issues
 Channel Doesn’t Connect
• IP Configuration
• Static Routing (Disaster Recovery)
• Windows Server Firewall Configuration
 Server Renaming fails to complete
 Excessive permission prompts
 Setup fails to progress
• Web Client Server is not set to automatic/manual

28. 28
Troubleshooting Operational Issues
 Channel Disconnects
 Managed failover
 Replication Stops
• Channel Drop
• MaxDiskUsage Error

29. 29
Troubleshooting MaxDiskUsage Errors

30. 30
Q&A

31. 31
References
 VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat Installation Guide
 VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat Administrator’s Guide
 VMware KB 2009860 – vCenter Server Heartbeat Web Service Logs
consume excessive disk space
 VMware KB 1008561 – Troubleshooting MaxDiskUsage errors
 VMware KB 2017531 – VMware channel fails to connect after
configuring firewall ports to allow traffic
 VMware KB 1008556 – Firewall connections causing channels to
drop in VMware vCenter Heartbeat
 VMware KB 1008551 – Troubleshooting VMware vCenter Server
Heartbeat channel drops

32. 32
Other VMware Activities Related to This Session
 HOL:
HOL-SDC-1305
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery In Action
 Group Discussions:
BCO 1004-GD
vCenter Heartbeat with Harry Smith

33. THANK YOU

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