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How to Create a VMware Cluster
Managing multiple ESX Servers is easy with the VMware. This
excerpt from Troy &
Helmke's VMware Cookbookwill guide you through the process of
creating a cluster with
the vCenter client.
If you want to create a cluster to manage the resources offered
by the multiple ESX Servers,
use the vCenter client to create the VMware cluster.
Creating a cluster inside vCenter allows you to combine multiple
ESX hosts in a centralized
group, placing all of their CPU and memory resources into a
general pool for use by virtualmachines. When you add an ESX host
to a cluster, the resources will automatically become
available for use by the virtual machines.
For example, Figure 4.12 shows six ESX hosts, each of which has
64GB of memory and two
quad-core CPUs (i.e., eight CPUs per ESX host, for a total of
48). Because clustering pools
the resources, you effectively have an enormous unified pool of
CPUs and memory for the
virtual machines to run. Combining a cluster with HA and DRS
will further enhance your
environment.
Figure 4.12. VMware cluster overview
Note
You do not need a license to create ESX clusters. However, to
take advantage of HA and
DRS you will need to obtain a license key from VMware.
VMware allows for a maximum of 16 ESX hosts in a vCenter 2.5x
cluster. In vCenter 4.xyou can have up to 32 ESX hosts in a
cluster.
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VMware has done a really nice job of making it simple to add a
new cluster in vCenter:
1. Load the vCenter client and log into your vCenter server.
2. Right-click on the datacenter name and select New Cluster, as
shown in
Figure 4.13.
The New Cluster wizard will launch to guide you through the
process of creating
the new cluster. The first screen in the wizard will ask you to
enter a name for the
cluster and indicate whether or not to enable two features:
VMware HA
This feature is available only to users who have a license for
the HA product
extension. When you enable VMware HA, it will detect and provide
rapid recovery
of virtual machines if an ESX host fails. This is an optional
feature and doesnt
need to be enabled to create a basic cluster.
VMware DRS
This feature also requires a license. DRS allows vCenter server
to manage hosts as
an aggregate pool of resources. Clusters can be broken down into
smaller groups by
using resource pools. VMware DRS also allows vCenter to manage
resources on
virtual machines, even placing them on different hosts if used
in conjunction with
VMotion. This is an optional feature that is not required to
create a cluster.
When youve made your selections, press the Next button to
continue. Additional
cluster features (including DRS and HA) can be enabled or
disabled at a later timeusing processes described elsewhere in this
chapter.
Figure 4.13. Adding a new cluster to a datacenter
3. Next, you will be asked where to store the swapfiles for the
virtual machines.
VMware gives you two options here:
o Store the swapfile in the same directory as the virtual
machine.
(Recommended.)
o Store the swapfile in the datastore specified by the host.
(This option is
not recommended because you could experience degraded
performance.)
Make your selection, then press the Next button to continue.
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