failover with vmware server?

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Destonomos

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Can you do auto failover with vmware server? For instance I have DNS and DHCP in one vm in windows 2003. If that vm goes down can I have another vm that is an exact copy take over so there is no loss of service?
 
depends on your version of vmware.

You can also do that with network load balancing.
 
With the VMware Server software itself? No. But you may be able to use some of the tools built into Windows or Linux (in the VM) to handle that for you.

DNS is easy - just stand up a secondary DNS server for the same zone and point people to both (one as a primary, the other secondary) and have the two replicate with one another.

DHCP on the other hand, well -- you could have two DHCP servers set up - one enabled and authorized and the other with the same settings - just unauthorized. If the one server goes down, enable and authorize the other.
 
Orinthical said:
With the VMware Server software itself? No. But you may be able to use some of the tools built into Windows or Linux (in the VM) to handle that for you.

DNS is easy - just stand up a secondary DNS server for the same zone and point people to both (one as a primary, the other secondary) and have the two replicate with one another.

DHCP on the other hand, well -- you could have two DHCP servers set up - one enabled and authorized and the other with the same settings - just unauthorized. If the one server goes down, enable and authorize the other.
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I see but I want to remove the manual process.
 
There are no built-in failover options with VMware Server. You're going to need a more robust solution, i.e. VMware ESX, to gain the failover automatically if you want to be able to bring your DHCP/DNS back online after a failure.

DNS, yeah you could have two VMware Server's with the primary on one and the secondary on the other. One goes down, no issues the other takes over . DHCP is going to require a manual process. There's no way around it. I'm sure someone might answer contrary with something other than a Windows DHCP, but the solution is out of scope of what a Windows based DHCP server can provide.
 
QHalo said:
There are no built-in failover options with VMware Server. You're going to need a more robust solution, i.e. VMware ESX, to gain the failover automatically if you want to be able to bring your DHCP/DNS back online after a failure.

DNS, yeah you could have two VMware Server's with the primary on one and the secondary on the other. One goes down, no issues the other takes over . DHCP is going to require a manual process. There's no way around it. I'm sure someone might answer contrary with something other than a Windows DHCP, but the solution is out of scope of what a Windows based DHCP server can provide.
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DHCP can be made HA by using MSCS/Failover Clustering.
 
oakfan52 said:
DHCP can be made HA by using MSCS/Failover Clustering.
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Thanks for beating me in the head. Forgot about that. There's plenty of documentation about setting up MSCS clusters with VMware on the web as well.
 
QHalo said:
Thanks for beating me in the head. Forgot about that. There's plenty of documentation about setting up MSCS clusters with VMware on the web as well.
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Plenty for ESX but I haven't seen one for VMware Server?
 
Hmm I was just wondering. I'm wanting to setup a pretty robust home networking will failover and the like without manual interaction.
 
...easier for DHCP is to manually split the scope. If one goes down the other will still assign from its pool. should be good enough until you get the second one back online.
 
if its just dns and dchp you can copy the vmdk file nightly and fire it up when the other goes down. Yes you may lose a reservation or 2 or a DNS entry not ideal, but will work
 
You generally don't want to have 2 dhcp servers set up with the same config. If one goes down & you just authorize the other one - you'll end up with bad address issues. Its best to split the segment into two pools for each server or us MSCS to do automated failover.
 
phreakpiercer said:
You generally don't want to have 2 dhcp servers set up with the same config. If one goes down & you just authorize the other one - you'll end up with bad address issues. Its best to split the segment into two pools for each server or us MSCS to do automated failover.
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can you cluster with just plain windows sever 2003?
 
yeah, you are going to need to BUY some stuff then.

If this is for a business with some actual money you could look at moving to an ESX environment with a shared SAN and setup HA fail-over
 
Captain Colonoscopy said:
yeah, you are going to need to BUY some stuff then.

If this is for a business with some actual money you could look at moving to an ESX environment with a shared SAN and setup HA fail-over
Click to expand...

My house isn't a business :p. Well my network will be serious business heh.
 
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