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Service Console Redundancy for VMware High Availability

Details

An ESX host in a VMware HA cluster considers itself isolated and powers off all virtual machines running on it (so that other members of the cluster can power on those virtual machines) if:
  • It cannot ping any other ESX host in the cluster
  • It cannot ping its default gateway
Since VMware HA only monitors service console network, an ESX host powers off all the virtual machines running on it if it looses its service console network (bad cable, bad NIC, physical switch port problems etc). This happens even if the virtual machine network is functioning properly because VMware HA does not monitor the virtual machine network. This leaves many environments vulnerable to have their virtual machines shut down in case service console network goes down.

Solution

To overcome this issue, you can configure an additional service console for redundancy. Having an additional service console on a separate vSwitch bound to a different vmnic which is attached to a different physical switch ensures that VMware HA does not power off virtual machines if primary service console network goes down. If primary service console network fails, it continues functioning by using the 2nd service console.
 
A complete guide to setting up server console redundancy can be found at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMwareHA_twp.pdf
 
For the configuration of a static route for the redundant service console see Adding static route to ESX host for extra Service Console (1005212).
 
When the secondary Service Console is set up, you must configure multiple VMware HA isolation addresses. For more information about setting multiple isolation response addresses, see Setting Multiple Isolation Response Addresses for VMware High Availability.
 
Note: This workaround reduces, but does not eliminate the event of false positive VMware HA results.

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  • KB Article: 1002641
  • Updated: Aug 14, 2009
  • Products:
    VMware ESX
    VMware VirtualCenter
  • Product Versions:
    VMware ESX 3.0.x
    VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.x