Purpose
This article provides information about supported high availability options for VMware vCenter Server as well as information regarding VMware's stance on use of third-party solutions to protect the vSphere environment.
Resolution
High availability for VMware vCenter Server can be primarily implemented using one of these for vCenter Server 5.x and 6.x.
- vSphere High Availability (HA)
- vSphere Symmetric Multiprocessor Fault Tolerance (vSphere FT)
- vCenter Server Watchdog
- Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) formerly Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS)
- VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat
This table describes the available solutions that can be used with vCenter Server to provide high availability by version. Please see the notes where applicable.
| Supported High Availability Solutions | |||||||
| vSphere HA | vSphere FT | WSFC/MSCS for VCDB | WSFC/MSCS for vCenter Server | vCenter Server Heartbeat | vCenter Server Watchdog | ||
| VirtualCenter Server / vCenter Server Version | 4.x | Yes 1 | No | No | No | Yes 5 | No |
| 5.0 | Yes 1 | No | No | No | Yes 5 | No | |
| 5.1 | Yes 1 | No | No | No | Yes 5 | No | |
| 5.5 | Yes 1 | No | Yes 4 | Yes 7 | Yes 5 | No | |
| 6.0 | Yes 1 | Yes 2 | Yes | Yes 6 | No | Yes3 | |
Notes:
- VMware vSphere HA provides robust general-purpose protection against hardware and operating system failures for vCenter Server instances running on a virtual machine. Once configured, vSphere HA monitors hosts and virtual machines, and takes the user-configured action with or without vCenter Server availability. For more information about vSphere HA, see the How vSphere HA Workssection of the vSphere Availability Guide.
For steps on setting up vSphere HA, see Create a vSphere HA Cluster in the vSphere Availability Guide. - Introduced in vSphere 6.0, customers can now use SMP-FT. VMware vSphere Fault Tolerance (FT) can be utilized to provide continuous availability for vCenter Server by having identical vCenter Server virtual machines running on separate hosts. A transparent failover occurs if the host running the Primary vCenter Server virtual machine fails, in which case the Secondary vCenter Server virtual machine is immediately activated to replace the failed virtual machine. A new secondary virtual machine is started and Fault Tolerance redundancy is reestablished automatically. Because support of FT for up to 4 virtual CPUs (vCPU) is available only in vSphere 6.0 Enterprise Plus edition, FT can only be used to protect vCenter Server for the tiny and small deployment type, 2 vCPU and 4 vCPU, respectively. For more information about Fault Tolerance, see Fault Tolerance Requirements, Limits, and Licensing in thevSphere Availability Guide. For more information about sizing of your vCenter Server and the supported numbers of hosts and virtual machines, see vCenter Server Appliance Hardware Requirements and vCenter Server for Windows Hardware Requirements sections in the vSphere Install and Setup Guide.
For steps on setting up vSphere FT, see Preparing Your Cluster and Hosts for Fault Tolerance in the vSphere Availability Guide. - Introduced in vSphere 6.0, customers can now use the vCenter Server Watchdog. vCenter Server Watchdog monitors and protects vCenter Server's VPXD providing better availability by periodically checking the vCenter Server processes (PID Watchdog) or the vCenter Server API (API Watchdog). If the Watchdog service detects that APIs are not running or responding, the Watchdog attempts to restart the service two times; on the third attempt, depending on your configuration, the Watchdog can reboot the vCenter Server's Host OS. For more information about the Watchdog, see Establishing Watchdog Support in the vCenter Server and Host ManagementGuide. Watchdog is enabled out of the box for vCenter Server 6.0.
- As of vSphere 5.5, VMware introduced support for using Microsoft SQL Cluster Service for use as a back-end database. Previously, using Microsoft SQL Cluster was not supported for any version of vSphere. For more information, see Enabling Microsoft SQL Clustering Service in VMware vCenter Server 5.5 (2059560). For more information about MSCS supportability, see Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) support on ESX/ESXi (1004617).
- As of vSphere 5.x and 4.x, VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat can be utilized to provides deep and comprehensive levels of protection against unplanned and, in some cases, planned vCenter Server downtime. For more information about VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat, see the VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat documentation. VMware has announced the End of Availability for all vCenter Server Heartbeat versions. For more information, see End of Availability for VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat (2079490). For information on removing VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat, see Uninstalling VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat 6.4 and later (2014202).
- As of vSphere 6.0, VMware introduced support for using Windows Server Failover Clustering or Microsoft Server Failover Clustering to protect a Windows-based vCenter Server. A transparent failover occurs if the Host Operating System (Host OS) running the Primary vCenter Server virtual machine fails, in which case the Secondary vCenter Server virtual machine is immediately activated to replace the failed virtual machine. WSFC/MSCS protection can only be used to protect the vCenter Server.
For steps on setting up WSFC or MSCS for vCenter Server, see the VMware vCenter Server 6.0 Availability Guide in the VMware High Availability White Papers section below. - Prior to the vCenter 5.5 Update 2 release, VMware had not certified vCenter high availability using WSFC. VMware has qualified vCenter high availability with vCenter 5.5 Update 2 using WSFC.
Additional Information
Third-party High Availability Solutions:
Other, third-party solutions are available to protect VMware vCenter Server 5.x and 6.0 including, but not limited to these solutions. However, these solutions are not certified by VMware for use with vCenter Server to provide high availability. If problems are experienced when the third-party solution is used with vCenter Server, VMware offers best effort support for any issues encountered with an environment that uses third-party solutions for protecting against VMware VirtualCenter downtime. However, VMware reserves the right to not support the environment until a compatible solution is used. For more information, see the VMware third-party hardware and software support policy.
Note: This list is not all inclusive.
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn
- Microsoft SQL Server 2014 AlwaysOn
- Microsoft SQL Server Database Mirroring
- Symantec Application HA for VMware
Customers seeking to add support for any third-party high availability solution may file a Feature Request or engage their VMware account team in filing a Request for Feature Enhancement (RFE) through a Request for Price Quotation (RPQ). For more information, see:
VMware High Availability White Papers:
For guidance on high availability best practices from VMware, consult the table below. The information is based on the Release Notes as well as the published product documentations for each release.
| vSphere Release | Documentation |
| 5.0 | VMware vSphere High Availability 5.0 Deployment Best Practices (PDF) vSphere Availability (PDF) |
| 5.1 | vSphere Availability (PDF) |
| 5.5 | VMware vCenter Server 5.5 Availability Guide (PDF) vSphere Availability (PDF) |
| 6.0 | VMware vCenter Server 6.0 Availability Guide (PDF) vSphere Availability (PDF) |
| http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1024051&src=vmw_so_vex_ragga_1012 |
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