VMware GSX 3 - Manual (Page 207)

C H A P T E R 7 High-Availability Configurations with VMware GSX Server
207
Configuring Virtual Machines for Cluster in a Box
To create a set of clustered virtual machines (a cluster in a box), configure each of
them with the following:
• A primary virtual SCSI host adapter with one SCSI virtual disk.
• Two virtual network adapters:
• A public network adapter bridged to a physical adapter either using VMnet0,
or VMnet2-8 as configured in the virtual machine settings editor of the GSX
Server machine.
• A private network adapter connected to VMnet1 (host-only), or another
physical adapter (VMnet2 through VMnet8). This is the network adapter that
the clustering service uses to monitor the heartbeat between nodes. This
device selection must match in all virtual machines in a cluster set.
• The remaining default virtual machine devices (such as the CD-ROM drive and
the floppy disk drive).
In addition to the above devices, the following are required for shared storage:
• A secondary virtual SCSI host adapter.
• One or more preallocated virtual disks that are shared, attached to the secondary
SCSI host adapter.
Please note the following about virtual PCI slots in the virtual machines:
• Each virtual machine by default has six PCI slots available.
• This configuration (two network adapters and two SCSI host bus adapters) uses
four of these slots.
• One more PCI slot is available for a third network adapter if needed. (The sixth
slot is used by the virtual display adapter.)
• If the virtual machine’s boot partition is on an IDE virtual disk, then this occupies
one of the PCI slots.
Creating a Two-Node Cluster with Microsoft Clustering
Services on a Single GSX Server Computer
This procedure creates a two-node cluster using Microsoft Clustering Services on a
single GSX Server computer using the following:
• SQL1 = host name of node 1 of the cluster
• SQL2 = host name of node 2 of the cluster
• SQLCLUSTER = public host name of the cluster