Configuring two or more PSC 6.5 nodes behind a Load Balancer can be done to provide High Availability to the PSC services.
This can be useful to have a central PSC HA pair and have multiple vCenter Servers registered against the PSC HA pair for enhanced linked mode.
It would also be required if using vCenter HA with an external PSC, otherwise you’re only providing HA to half the vCenter Server instance.
I hope this guide helps perform the setup with ease and clarity.
The first patch to vSphere 6.5 was released last week. You can find the release notes here
That means that you may be looking to patch your vCenter HA enabled vCenter Server Appliance(s).
Continue reading “Patching/Updating a VCHA enabled vCenter Server Appliance”
In vSphere 6.x all services and components have Service Registration details recorded in the VMware Directory Service of the Platform Services Controller.
Each Service Registration can contain one or more Endpoint entries.
Each Endpoint may contain an SSL Trust value.
The SSL Trust value must always match the current Machine SSL certificate of the PSC or VC or Embedded node it refers to.
If you use the Certificate-Manager from 6.0 U1b or later – the tool will take care of updating these entries. If you replace the Machine SSL manually or have used the tool before 6.0 U1b then you may encounter this issue.
When VCHA is enabled, a new OS user “vcha” is created and used for the file based replication.
This morning I experienced an issue on one of my VCHA setups (but not the other) where replication was failing when I arrived into the office.
Update 23/01/2017 – This is a real issue and not a once off. VMware Engineering are aware.
I’ve been playing around with VCHA and had been taking snapshots and have encountered some issues using snapshots on a VCHA enabled VCSA 6.5
You need to exercise caution when using snapshots on a VCSA that is enabled for VCHA.
Important: This is only when snapshot tasks are being done to the VCSA 6.5 VM. For all other VMs in your inventory there is no issue.
This includes taking snapshots of the current Active, reverting to snapshots of the current Active and deleting snapshots of the current Active.
For any and all of those tasks, ensure that the VCHA Cluster is in “Disabled” mode.
Something you might not be aware of is that most of the vCenter Server 6.5 services no longer register with the Windows Service Control Manager.
If you install or upgrade to a Windows vCenter Server 6.5 you will only see a handful of services when you launch services.msc.
No need to panic or think that the install didn’t go successfully.
Word of warning: When you get to vSphere 6.5, your vCenter Servers are stuck to whatever PSC Site they are currently located in!
This post should hopefully help you understand what is and what is not protected by VCHA and also what to expect depending on the situation.
For more on VCHA please see my previous posts:
There are a few gotcha’s and known issues that I have found with vCenter HA. Hopefully the following will be of use and avoid the need to engage VMware Support to resolve.
For more on VCHA please see my previous post which also includes short videos of both deployment methods.
One of the most anticipated features of vSphere 6.5 is native high availability for vCenter Server. No additional product like vCenter Server Heartbeat or no third party feature like MSCS/WFCS is needed.
The first thing to point out is that this feature is exclusive for the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.
Windows vCenter Server 6.5 will still support MSCS/WFCS to provide high availability.
Continue reading “vSphere 6.5 Feature Preview: vCenter High Availability”
have you tried reinstalling? 