Monday, 4 January 2010

What’s the benefit of vCenter Server Heartbeat

I often speak to people who prefer a virtual machine protected by VMware HA for hosting their vCenter Server instead of using vCenter Server Heartbeat but vCenter Server Heartbeat offers some real great benefits compared to VMware HA. VMware HA only works with virtual machines and protects the operating system and hardware. HA also needs shared storage. vCenter Server Heartbeat is able to clone, synchronize and do real-time replication. vCenter Server Heartbeat works with either virtual machines or physical machines and protects the operating system, the hardware, and the application. You don’t need shared storage but redundant storage. I’ve created a little demo movie showing the vCenter Server Heartbeat console and a real fast switchover to the secondary server.

http://screencast.com/t/MzJjM2E1

http://screencast.com/t/MWJkZjA4MG

Posted by

Eric Sloof

in vSphere at 21:33 | 4 Comments | No Trackbacks

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Impressive stuff indeed, and worth its money in large deployments where vCenter Server is a "Tier 1" app. Hard to justify the $9.995 (list)price tag (+ SnS, of course) for smaller environments though.

#1 Lode (Homepage) on 2010-01-04 23:02 (Reply)

Nice videos Eric. We bought 4 copies of vCenter Heartbeat. Haven't implemented yet though. I've kicked the tires on this product a few times at VMworld labs and it seemed pretty rough... At least an hour just to set up.

Is $9,995US the list price now? Wasn't it $12,500US when it launched? vCenter Server licenses (2 required) are still sold separately correct?

Jas

#1.1 Jason Boche (Homepage) on 2010-01-05 04:03 (Reply)

Jason,

If I'm not mistaken, the $12.500 was/is for the vCenter Server Availability Acceleration Kit (SKU VCHB-AK-PROMO), which includes 1 vCenter Server license and 1 vCenter Server Heartbeat license.

I thought a secondary vCenter Server license was not required, only a secondary Windows OS license. (See the last slide of VM2674.)

#1.1.1 Lode (Homepage) on 2010-01-05 09:20 (Reply)

You only need one vCenter and vCenter heartbeat license per server pair.

#1.1.2 Rob Mokkink on 2010-01-05 21:37 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment: Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.

Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
: Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry
Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.

What’s the benefit of vCenter Server Heartbeat

NTPRO.NL - Eric Sloof

Monday, 4 January 2010

What’s the benefit of vCenter Server Heartbeat

Recent Entries

Archive

Category