Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS for VMware High Availability and Live Migration Using VMware VMotion

Table Of Contents

Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS for VMware High Availability and Live Migration Using VMware VMotion

Overview of VMware High Availability

VMware vSphere Components for Setting Up High Availability

Prerequisites for Implementing High Availability

Setting up High Availability using VMware HA

Creating a VMware HA Cluster

Overview of VMware VMotion

VMware vSphere Components for Migration

Prerequisites for Migration Using VMotion

Migrating LMS 3.2 Using VMware VMotion

Migrating a Virtual Machine with VMotion

Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS for VMware High Availability and Live Migration Using VMware VMotion

This chapter explains setting up CiscoWorks LMS for High Availability (HA) and live migration using the VMware vSphere solution.

VMware High Availability (HA) is the solution used for HA, and VMware VMotion is used for live migration.

This section explains:

•Overview of VMware High Availability

•Overview of VMware VMotion

Overview of VMware High Availability

VMware High Availability (HA) is a simple and cost-effective solution which ensures high levels of availability during a planned or unplanned downtime.

With VMware HA, you can:

•Provide higher availability independent of hardware, operating system, and applications.

•Eliminate planned downtime for common maintenance operations.

•Provide automatic restart in cases of failure.

VMware HA uses multiple ESX or ESXi hosts configured as a cluster to provide rapid recovery from outages and high availability for applications running in virtual machines. You must create a cluster, populate it with hosts, and configure VMware HA settings before failover protection can be established.

After you finish the initial setup of the host, download and install the vSphere Client. The vSphere Client is a Windows program that you can use to configure the host and to operate its virtual machines. It enables you to connect to an ESX or ESXi host and to a vCenter Server system. Connect to the host and add your virtual machine by importing a virtual appliance.

VMware HA protects application availability in two ways:

•It protects against a server failure by automatically restarting the virtual machines on other hosts within the cluster.

•It protects against application failure by continuously monitoring a virtual machine and resetting it in the event that a failure is detected.

This section explains:

•VMware vSphere Components for Setting Up High Availability

•Prerequisites for Implementing High Availability

•Setting up High Availability using VMware HA

•Creating a VMware HA Cluster

VMware vSphere Components for Setting Up High Availability

The following VMware vSphere components are used in the LMS HA solution:

•VMware ESX or ESXi

Virtualization layer run on physical servers that abstracts processor, memory, storage, and resources into multiple virtual machines. Two versions of ESX are available: VMware ESX 4.0 and VMware ESXi 4.0.

•VMware vCenter Server

Central point for configuring, provisioning, and managing virtualized IT environments.

•VMware vSphere Client

Program that you can use to configure the host and to operate its virtual machines. It enables you to connect to an ESX or ESXi host and to a vCenter Server system. vSphere Client acts as an interface that allows users to connect remotely to vCenter Server or ESX or ESXi from any Windows PC.

Prerequisites for Implementing High Availability

The prerequisites for implementing HA in LMS 3.2 using VMware HA are grouped into:

•VMware ESX servers Requirements

•VMware vCenter Server Requirements

•VMware HA Cluster Requirements

•Shared Storage Requirements

•Other Requirements

This section explains the prerequisites:

VMware ESX servers Requirements

•Ensure that each ESX or ESXi host meets the minimum hardware requirements supported by ESX or ESXi 4.0 and vSphere Client.

•The ESX or ESXi servers must:

–Have access to all the networks.

–Have compatible CPUs.

VMware vCenter Server Requirements

•Ensure that the VMware vCenter Server must:

–Be installed on a Windows machine.

–Have network access to the ESX or ESXi host, vSphere Client.

–Meet the vCenter Server hardware requirements.

VMware HA Cluster Requirements

•The virtual machine must not be:

–Connected to a CD-ROM or floppy drive, that is using an ISO or floppy image, stored on a drive that is local to the host server.

–Bound to any physical CPUs.

•All virtual machines and their configuration files must reside on shared storage accessible to both source and target ESX hosts.

•The vSphere Client must be installed on a Windows machine that has network access to the ESX or ESXi host, vCenter Server.

Shared Storage Requirements

Shared storage is typically on a storage area network (SAN), but can also be implemented using iSCSI and NAS shared storage.

Other Requirements

•For a successfull HA in LMS 3.2, all redundant network connections must be in the same subnet.

•Ensure a successfull failover before you install LMS 3.2.

Note For more details, see the VMware vSphere 4.0 documentation.

Setting up High Availability using VMware HA

This section lists the steps to setup HA for LMS 3.2 using VMware HA:

1. Install ESX or ESXi 4.0 in two or more servers.

2. Install vCenter Server 4.0 in any server.

3. Install vSphere Client in client server and connect to vCenter Server.

4. Create a cluster and add ESX or ESXi hosts to it. See Creating a VMware HA Cluster for more information.

5. Configure the shared storage which is accessible to all the hosts in the cluster.

6. Create a virtual machine and select a datastore as shared storage disk.

7. Configure VMware HA settings for the cluster created.

8. Ensure that sufficient resource is available in the cluster.

9. Ensure that there are no errors or alert messages (select Cluster > Summary page) in the vSphere Client.

10. Install LMS 3.2 in the virtual machine created in the shared storage.

Creating a VMware HA Cluster

You must create a cluster, populate it with hosts, and configure VMware HA settings before failover protection can be established.

To create a VMware HA cluster using vSphere Client:

Step 1 Select the Hosts & Clusters view in vSphere Client.

Step 2 Right-click the Datacenter in the Inventory tree and click New Cluster.

Step 3 Complete the New Cluster wizard.

Do not enable VMware HA (or DRS) at this time.

Step 4 Click Finish to close the wizard and create an empty cluster.

Step 5 Based on your plan for the resources and networking architecture of the cluster, use the vSphere Client

to add hosts to the cluster.

Step 6 Right-click the cluster and click Edit Settings to modify the VMware HA (and other) settings for the cluster.

Step 7 On the Cluster Features page, select Turn On VMware HA.

Step 8 Configure the VMware HA settings for your cluster.

•Host Monitoring Status

•Admission Control

•Virtual Machine Options

•VM Monitoring

Step 9 Click OK to close the cluster's Settings dialog box.

A configured VMware HA cluster, populated with hosts, is created.

Note For more details on VMware HA settings, see the VMware vSphere 4.0 documentation.

Note The above steps are specific to VMware vSphere 4.0 and can vary in later releases, for more information see VMware vSphere documentation.

Overview of VMware VMotion

Migration is the process of moving a virtual machine from one host or storage location to another. VMware VMotion allows you to dynamically move workloads to different physical servers or to different underlying storage without service interruption.

Migration with VMotion allows working processes in a virtual machine to continue throughout a migration. The entire state of the virtual machine is moved to the new host, while the associated virtual disk remains in the same location on storage that is shared between the two hosts. After the virtual machine state is migrated to the alternate host, the virtual machine runs on the new host.

When you migrate a virtual machine with VMotion, the new host for the virtual machine must meet compatibility requirements in order for the migration to proceed.

Migration with VMotion happens in three stages:

1. When the migration with VMotion is requested, vCenter Server verifies that the existing virtual machine is in a stable state with its current host.

2. The virtual machine state information (memory, registers, and network connections) is copied to the target host.

3. The virtual machine resumes its activities on the new host.

If any error occurs during migration, the virtual machines revert to their original states and locations.

Migration of a suspended virtual machine and migration with VMotion can be referred to as hot migration, because they allow migration of a virtual machine without powering it off.

This section explains:

•VMware vSphere Components for Migration

•Prerequisites for Migration Using VMotion

•VMware vSphere Components for Migration

•Migrating LMS 3.2 Using VMware VMotion

VMware vSphere Components for Migration

The following VMware vSphere components are used for live migration of LMS 3.2:

•VMware ESX or ESXi

Virtualization layer run on physical servers that abstracts processor, memory, storage, and resources into multiple virtual machines. Two versions of ESX are available: VMware ESX 4.0 and VMware ESXi 4.0.

•VMware vCenter Server

Central point for configuring, provisioning, and managing virtualized IT environments.

•VMware vSphere Client

Program that you can use to configure the host and to operate its virtual machines. It enables you to connect to an ESX or ESXi host and to a vCenter Server system. vSphere Client acts as an interface that allows users to connect remotely to vCenter Server or ESX or ESXi from any Windows PC.

•VMware VMotion

VMware VMotion enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero down time, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity.

Prerequisites for Migration Using VMotion

This section explains the prerequisites for migration using VMware VMotion. The prerequisites are grouped into:

•Ensure that all the hosts and the servers meet the hardware and software requirements.

•Each host must:

–Be correctly licensed for VMotion

–Use one dedicated Ethernet adapter for the service console (on ESX hosts).

–Use one dedicated Gigabit Ethernet adapter for VMotion.

•The ESX or ESXi servers must:

–Be connected using a Gigabit Ethernet or a faster network.

–Have access to the same physical networks.

–Have compatible CPUs

•Ensure that the VMware vCenter Server must:

–Be installed on a Windows machine.

–Have network access to the ESX or ESXi host, vSphere Client.

–Meet the vCenter Server hardware requirements.

•The migrating virtual machine must be on storage accessible to both the source and target hosts.

•The virtual machine (VM) must not be:

–Connected to a CD-ROM or floppy drive, that is using an ISO or floppy image, stored on a drive that is local to the host server.

–Bound to any physical CPUs.

–Clustered with another VM using a cluster service like the Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS).

•Ensure that virtual machines have access to the same subnets on source and destination hosts.

•Ensure that the network labels used for virtual machine port groups are consistent across hosts.

During a migration with VMotion, vCenter Server assigns virtual machines to port groups based on matching network labels.

•Shared storage requirements:

Shared storage is typically on a storage area network (SAN), but can also be implemented using iSCSI and NAS shared storage.

Note For more details, see the VMware vSphere 4.0 documentation.

Migrating LMS 3.2 Using VMware VMotion

This section lists the steps to migrate LMS 3.2 using VMware VMotion:

1. Install ESX or ESXi 4.0 in two or more servers.

2. Install vCenter Server 4.0 in any server .

3. Install the vSphere Client.

4. Create a cluster and add all the ESX or ESXi hosts to it.

5. Ensure that shared storage is accessible to both source and target ESX or ESXi hosts.

6. Configure VMotion in vSphere 4.0.

7. On each host, configure a VMkernel port group for VMotion.

8. Create a virtual machine and select a datastore as storage disk.

9. Ensure that migration is successful before installing LMS 3.2.

10. Ensure that sufficient resource is available on the target ESX or ESXi host.

11. Install LMS 3.2 in any virtual machine in the cluster.

12. Migrate the virtual machine from one host to another. See Migrating a Virtual Machine with VMotion for more information.

Migrating a Virtual Machine with VMotion

To migrate a powered-on virtual machine from one host to another using VMotion technology:

Step 1 Select the virtual machine you want to migrate in the inventory.

Step 2 Right-click on the virtual machine, and select Migrate from the pop-up menu.

Step 3 Select Change host and click Next.

Step 4 Select a destination host for the virtual machine.

If there is a compatibility problem it appears in the Compatibility panel. Fix the problem, or select another host or cluster.

Step 5 Select a resource pool and click Next.

Step 6 Select the migration priority level and click Next.

Step 7 Review the page and click Finish.

A task is created that begins the virtual machine migration process.

Note The above steps are specific to VMware vSphere 4.0 and can vary in later releases, for more information see VMware vSphere documentation.

	Installing and Getting Started With CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution 3.2
	Chapter 5 Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS for VMware High Availability and Live Migration Using VMware VMotion
Installing and Getting Started With CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution 3.2 SUPPLEMENTAL LICENSE AGREEMENT Notices Preface Chapter 1 Overview of CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution 3.2 Chapter 2 Prerequisites Chapter 3 Preparing to Install CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution 3.2 Chapter 4 Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS in High Availability and Disaster Recovery Environment Chapter 5 Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS for VMware High Availability and Live Migration Using VMware VMotion Chapter 6 Performing Installation of CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution 3.2 Chapter 7 Getting Started with CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution Chapter 8 Troubleshooting and FAQs Appendix A User Inputs for Installation Appendix B User Tracking Utility Appendix C Installing the Remote Syslog Collector Index	Download this chapter Chapter 5 Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS for VMware High Availability and Live Migration Using VMware VMotion Download the complete book Installing and Getting Started With CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution 3.2 (Full Book PDF) (PDF - 2 MB) Table Of Contents Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS for VMware High Availability and Live Migration Using VMware VMotion Overview of VMware High Availability VMware vSphere Components for Setting Up High Availability Prerequisites for Implementing High Availability Setting up High Availability using VMware HA Creating a VMware HA Cluster Overview of VMware VMotion VMware vSphere Components for Migration Prerequisites for Migration Using VMotion Migrating LMS 3.2 Using VMware VMotion Migrating a Virtual Machine with VMotion Setting Up CiscoWorks LMS for VMware High Availability and Live Migration Using VMware VMotion This chapter explains setting up CiscoWorks LMS for High Availability (HA) and live migration using the VMware vSphere solution. VMware High Availability (HA) is the solution used for HA, and VMware VMotion is used for live migration. This section explains: •Overview of VMware High Availability •Overview of VMware VMotion Overview of VMware High Availability VMware High Availability (HA) is a simple and cost-effective solution which ensures high levels of availability during a planned or unplanned downtime. With VMware HA, you can: •Provide higher availability independent of hardware, operating system, and applications. •Eliminate planned downtime for common maintenance operations. •Provide automatic restart in cases of failure. VMware HA uses multiple ESX or ESXi hosts configured as a cluster to provide rapid recovery from outages and high availability for applications running in virtual machines. You must create a cluster, populate it with hosts, and configure VMware HA settings before failover protection can be established. After you finish the initial setup of the host, download and install the vSphere Client. The vSphere Client is a Windows program that you can use to configure the host and to operate its virtual machines. It enables you to connect to an ESX or ESXi host and to a vCenter Server system. Connect to the host and add your virtual machine by importing a virtual appliance. VMware HA protects application availability in two ways: •It protects against a server failure by automatically restarting the virtual machines on other hosts within the cluster. •It protects against application failure by continuously monitoring a virtual machine and resetting it in the event that a failure is detected. This section explains: •VMware vSphere Components for Setting Up High Availability •Prerequisites for Implementing High Availability •Setting up High Availability using VMware HA •Creating a VMware HA Cluster VMware vSphere Components for Setting Up High Availability The following VMware vSphere components are used in the LMS HA solution: •VMware ESX or ESXi Virtualization layer run on physical servers that abstracts processor, memory, storage, and resources into multiple virtual machines. Two versions of ESX are available: VMware ESX 4.0 and VMware ESXi 4.0. •VMware vCenter Server Central point for configuring, provisioning, and managing virtualized IT environments. •VMware vSphere Client Program that you can use to configure the host and to operate its virtual machines. It enables you to connect to an ESX or ESXi host and to a vCenter Server system. vSphere Client acts as an interface that allows users to connect remotely to vCenter Server or ESX or ESXi from any Windows PC. Prerequisites for Implementing High Availability The prerequisites for implementing HA in LMS 3.2 using VMware HA are grouped into: •VMware ESX servers Requirements •VMware vCenter Server Requirements •VMware HA Cluster Requirements •Shared Storage Requirements •Other Requirements This section explains the prerequisites: VMware ESX servers Requirements •Ensure that each ESX or ESXi host meets the minimum hardware requirements supported by ESX or ESXi 4.0 and vSphere Client. •The ESX or ESXi servers must: –Have access to all the networks. –Have compatible CPUs. VMware vCenter Server Requirements •Ensure that the VMware vCenter Server must: –Be installed on a Windows machine. –Have network access to the ESX or ESXi host, vSphere Client. –Meet the vCenter Server hardware requirements. VMware HA Cluster Requirements •The virtual machine must not be: –Connected to a CD-ROM or floppy drive, that is using an ISO or floppy image, stored on a drive that is local to the host server. –Bound to any physical CPUs. •All virtual machines and their configuration files must reside on shared storage accessible to both source and target ESX hosts. •The vSphere Client must be installed on a Windows machine that has network access to the ESX or ESXi host, vCenter Server. Shared Storage Requirements Shared storage is typically on a storage area network (SAN), but can also be implemented using iSCSI and NAS shared storage. Other Requirements •For a successfull HA in LMS 3.2, all redundant network connections must be in the same subnet. •Ensure a successfull failover before you install LMS 3.2. Note For more details, see the VMware vSphere 4.0 documentation. Setting up High Availability using VMware HA This section lists the steps to setup HA for LMS 3.2 using VMware HA: 1. Install ESX or ESXi 4.0 in two or more servers. 2. Install vCenter Server 4.0 in any server. 3. Install vSphere Client in client server and connect to vCenter Server. 4. Create a cluster and add ESX or ESXi hosts to it. See Creating a VMware HA Cluster for more information. 5. Configure the shared storage which is accessible to all the hosts in the cluster. 6. Create a virtual machine and select a datastore as shared storage disk. 7. Configure VMware HA settings for the cluster created. 8. Ensure that sufficient resource is available in the cluster. 9. Ensure that there are no errors or alert messages (select Cluster > Summary page) in the vSphere Client. 10. Install LMS 3.2 in the virtual machine created in the shared storage. Creating a VMware HA Cluster You must create a cluster, populate it with hosts, and configure VMware HA settings before failover protection can be established. To create a VMware HA cluster using vSphere Client: Step 1 Select the Hosts & Clusters view in vSphere Client. Step 2 Right-click the Datacenter in the Inventory tree and click New Cluster. Step 3 Complete the New Cluster wizard. Do not enable VMware HA (or DRS) at this time. Step 4 Click Finish to close the wizard and create an empty cluster. Step 5 Based on your plan for the resources and networking architecture of the cluster, use the vSphere Client to add hosts to the cluster. Step 6 Right-click the cluster and click Edit Settings to modify the VMware HA (and other) settings for the cluster. Step 7 On the Cluster Features page, select Turn On VMware HA. Step 8 Configure the VMware HA settings for your cluster. •Host Monitoring Status •Admission Control •Virtual Machine Options •VM Monitoring Step 9 Click OK to close the cluster's Settings dialog box. A configured VMware HA cluster, populated with hosts, is created. Note For more details on VMware HA settings, see the VMware vSphere 4.0 documentation. Note The above steps are specific to VMware vSphere 4.0 and can vary in later releases, for more information see VMware vSphere documentation. Overview of VMware VMotion Migration is the process of moving a virtual machine from one host or storage location to another. VMware VMotion allows you to dynamically move workloads to different physical servers or to different underlying storage without service interruption. Migration with VMotion allows working processes in a virtual machine to continue throughout a migration. The entire state of the virtual machine is moved to the new host, while the associated virtual disk remains in the same location on storage that is shared between the two hosts. After the virtual machine state is migrated to the alternate host, the virtual machine runs on the new host. When you migrate a virtual machine with VMotion, the new host for the virtual machine must meet compatibility requirements in order for the migration to proceed. Migration with VMotion happens in three stages: 1. When the migration with VMotion is requested, vCenter Server verifies that the existing virtual machine is in a stable state with its current host. 2. The virtual machine state information (memory, registers, and network connections) is copied to the target host. 3. The virtual machine resumes its activities on the new host. If any error occurs during migration, the virtual machines revert to their original states and locations. Migration of a suspended virtual machine and migration with VMotion can be referred to as hot migration, because they allow migration of a virtual machine without powering it off. This section explains: •VMware vSphere Components for Migration •Prerequisites for Migration Using VMotion •VMware vSphere Components for Migration •Migrating LMS 3.2 Using VMware VMotion VMware vSphere Components for Migration The following VMware vSphere components are used for live migration of LMS 3.2: •VMware ESX or ESXi Virtualization layer run on physical servers that abstracts processor, memory, storage, and resources into multiple virtual machines. Two versions of ESX are available: VMware ESX 4.0 and VMware ESXi 4.0. •VMware vCenter Server Central point for configuring, provisioning, and managing virtualized IT environments. •VMware vSphere Client Program that you can use to configure the host and to operate its virtual machines. It enables you to connect to an ESX or ESXi host and to a vCenter Server system. vSphere Client acts as an interface that allows users to connect remotely to vCenter Server or ESX or ESXi from any Windows PC. •VMware VMotion VMware VMotion enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero down time, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity. Prerequisites for Migration Using VMotion This section explains the prerequisites for migration using VMware VMotion. The prerequisites are grouped into: •Ensure that all the hosts and the servers meet the hardware and software requirements. •Each host must: –Be correctly licensed for VMotion –Use one dedicated Ethernet adapter for the service console (on ESX hosts). –Use one dedicated Gigabit Ethernet adapter for VMotion. •The ESX or ESXi servers must: –Be connected using a Gigabit Ethernet or a faster network. –Have access to the same physical networks. –Have compatible CPUs •Ensure that the VMware vCenter Server must: –Be installed on a Windows machine. –Have network access to the ESX or ESXi host, vSphere Client. –Meet the vCenter Server hardware requirements. •The migrating virtual machine must be on storage accessible to both the source and target hosts. •The virtual machine (VM) must not be: –Connected to a CD-ROM or floppy drive, that is using an ISO or floppy image, stored on a drive that is local to the host server. –Bound to any physical CPUs. –Clustered with another VM using a cluster service like the Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS). •Ensure that virtual machines have access to the same subnets on source and destination hosts. •Ensure that the network labels used for virtual machine port groups are consistent across hosts. During a migration with VMotion, vCenter Server assigns virtual machines to port groups based on matching network labels. •Shared storage requirements: Shared storage is typically on a storage area network (SAN), but can also be implemented using iSCSI and NAS shared storage. Note For more details, see the VMware vSphere 4.0 documentation. Migrating LMS 3.2 Using VMware VMotion This section lists the steps to migrate LMS 3.2 using VMware VMotion: 1. Install ESX or ESXi 4.0 in two or more servers. 2. Install vCenter Server 4.0 in any server . 3. Install the vSphere Client. 4. Create a cluster and add all the ESX or ESXi hosts to it. 5. Ensure that shared storage is accessible to both source and target ESX or ESXi hosts. 6. Configure VMotion in vSphere 4.0. 7. On each host, configure a VMkernel port group for VMotion. 8. Create a virtual machine and select a datastore as storage disk. 9. Ensure that migration is successful before installing LMS 3.2. 10. Ensure that sufficient resource is available on the target ESX or ESXi host. 11. Install LMS 3.2 in any virtual machine in the cluster. 12. Migrate the virtual machine from one host to another. See Migrating a Virtual Machine with VMotion for more information. Migrating a Virtual Machine with VMotion To migrate a powered-on virtual machine from one host to another using VMotion technology: Step 1 Select the virtual machine you want to migrate in the inventory. Step 2 Right-click on the virtual machine, and select Migrate from the pop-up menu. Step 3 Select Change host and click Next. Step 4 Select a destination host for the virtual machine. If there is a compatibility problem it appears in the Compatibility panel. Fix the problem, or select another host or cluster. Step 5 Select a resource pool and click Next. Step 6 Select the migration priority level and click Next. Step 7 Review the page and click Finish. A task is created that begins the virtual machine migration process. Note The above steps are specific to VMware vSphere 4.0 and can vary in later releases, for more information see VMware vSphere documentation.
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