Monday, May 05, 2014

Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) support on VMware vSphere

Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) is Microsoft cluster technology required shared storage supporting SCSI reservation mechanism. Microsoft has introduced new - perhaps more modern and more descriptive - name for the same technology. New name is "Microsoft Failover Cluster" so don't be confused with different names.

VMware has supplementary documentation called "Setup for Failover Clustering and Microsoft Cluster Service" covering the subject. Here is online documentation for vSphere 5.5 and here for vSphere 5.1. This documentation is a must to read to fully understand what is and what is not possible.

However documentation is relatively old so if you want to know up-to-date information you have to leverage VMware KB. Here are two KB articles related to the topic
  • Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) support on ESXi/ESX (1004617)
  • Microsoft Clustering on VMware vSphere: Guidelines for supported configurations (1037959)
And here is general advice.
Plan, plan, plan ... design ... review ... implement ... verify.
I hope you know what I mean.

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