High availability considerations

To set up high availability for Lenovo XClarity Administrator, use the high availability features that are part of the host operating system (VMware ESXi or Microsoft Hyper-V).

For information about implementing high-availability, see Implementing high availability.

Citrix XenServer

Use the high-availability function that is provided for the XenServer environment. For more information, see Implementing high availability (XenServer).

Microsoft Hyper-V

use the high-availability function that is provided for the ESXi environment. For information, see Implementing high availability (Hyper-V).

Nutanix AHV

use the Virtual Machine High Availability function that is provided for the Nutanix AHV environment. For more information, see Implementing high availability (Nutanix AHV).

CentOS and RedHat KVM

You can use OpenStack, or if you already have a high-availability environment, continue to use your internal processes. For more information about OpenStack high availability, see Implementing high availability (CentOS, KVM).

VMware ESXi

In a VMware high-availability environment, multiple hosts are configured as a cluster. Shared storage is used to make the disk image of a virtual machine (VM) available to the hosts in the cluster. The VM runs on only one host at a time. When there is an issue with the VM, another instance of that VM is started on a backup host.

VMware high availability requires the following components:
  • A minimum of two hosts on which ESXi is installed. These hosts become part of the VMware cluster.
  • A third host on which VMware vCenter is installed.
    Tip: Ensure that you install a version of VMware vCenter that is compatible with the versions of ESXi that are installed on the hosts to be used in the cluster.

    VMware vCenter can be installed on one of the hosts that is used in the cluster. However, if that host is powered off or not usable, you lose access to the VMware vCenter interface as well.

  • Shared storage (datastores) that can be accessed by all hosts in the cluster. You can use any type of shared storage that VMware supports. The datastore is used by VMware to determine if a VM should fail over to a different host (heartbeating).

For details about setting up a VMware high availability cluster, see Implementing high availability (ESXi).

Parent topic: Planning for Lenovo XClarity Administrator