Sql-server – SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance compatible with VMware HA

clusteringfailoversql servervmware

Imaginary Setup: Microsoft SQL Server Failover Cluster Instance on virtual machine in an ESX-Cluster.

Question: In case of a hardware failure, what will happen with both high availability configurations?

  1. will VMware migrate the VM to another ESX-host?
  2. will the failover cluster istance failover to another VM?
  3. both high availability options try to act, what happens?

Please let me know if my question is unclear or any information is missing. Thanks in advance!

+---ESX------------+                               +---ESX--------------+   
|                  +--------ESX-heartbeat----------+                    |   
| +-VM-----------+ |                               | +-VM-------------+ |   
| |              +---------------WSFC----------------+                | |   
| | +----------+ | |                               | | +------------+ | |   
| | |DBMS      +---------------MSSQL FCI---------------+DBMS        | | |   
| | +----+-----+ | |                               | | +------+-----+ | |   
| |      |       | |                               | |        |       | |   
| |      |       | |                               | |        |       | |   
| |      |       | |                               | |        |       | |   
| |      |       | |                               | |        |       | |   
| |      |       | |                               | |        |       | |   
| |      |       | |                               | |        |       | |   
| |      |       | |                               | |        |       | |   
| +--------------+ |                               | +----------------+ |   
+------------------+                               +--------------------+   
         |                                                    |             
         |                                                    |             
         |              +------------------+                  |             
         |              |       SAN        |                  |             
         +--------------+                  +------------------+             
                        |                  |                                
                        |                  |                                
                        +------------------+

Best Answer

There are so many factors in place here as you can have multiple failover paths defined both in VMWare and the failover cluster. So the answers are almost as many as there are configuration options.

But in general if a single EXI host stops. VMWare will migrate it's VM's to another and as all the virtual machines will have shut down the second windows failover cluster node will become the primary node.

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