What is a Stretched Cluster High Availability Service and when can it be requested ?
This service is made to offer High Availability* to strategical Virtual Machines that don’t support Clustering mode.
When you put a vApp Container into your STR the vApp is automatically replicated. There’s no need to do anything else to protect it !
The Automation Process works with the following steps:
- A primary DC is automatically chosen . (You cannot choose your primary DC by yourself).
- All VM’s in the vApp are automatically replicated to second DC that is elected as « secondary ».
- Only One vApp is visible on your interface and it can be manipulated exactly at the same way as a standard vApp.
- In case of need the Auto Passive Replicated VM can be elected as primary.
Note: In case of Inaccessible DC (Step 4) it will provoke a limited downtime of 1 to 2 minutes to restart all VM’s using this service to the only available DC. Stretch Cluster is not Fault Tolerant.
Definitions:
*VMware High Availability is a utility included that can restart failed virtual machines (VMs) on alternative host servers to reduce application downtime.
Questions / Answers
Q/A: Can I add more than one VM into a vApp with the STR Cluster ?
Yes. You can put all VM’s you need into one or more vApps. You are only limited by the resource sizing of your Stretched Cluster.
Q/A: Can I move my VM’s into a non stretched vApp without loosing Stretched Service ?
No. You only can move a VM into another vApp that MUST be on the same Data Center (DC).
Q/A: How can I reserve or revoke this service?
You can request/revoke this service directly from your service manager.