VCenter HA Network: To configure vCenter HA there is HA network required. Witness Node: Witness Node is a lightweight clone of the Active node and it serves as a quorum to protect against a split-brain situation.

And the Passive Node takes over the role of the Active Node once the failover occurs. It continuously receives updates from and synchronizes state with the Active node over the vCenter HA network. Passive Node: Passive Node is the clone of the Active node which created while configuring the HA for vCenter. The active node replicates data to the Passive node using the HA network to communicate with the Passive & Witness Node. The Active node is continuously replicating data to the Passive node.Īctive Node: Active node is the primary running vCenter Server Appliance instance that is currently running. The three nodes communicate over a private network called the vCenter HA network that is set up as part of the configuration. When the vCenter HA configuration is complete, only the Active node has an active management interface (public IP). Adding the three ESXi hosts to a DRS cluster can further protect your environment. And together these three nodes provide an active-passive failover solution.ĭeploying each of the nodes on a different ESXi instance protects against hardware failure. In the fully-functioning HTML5 release of vCenter 6.7 Update 1 onwards the setup of vCenter HA was incredibly simplified.Ī vCenter HA cluster consists of three VCSA instances, the first instance initially used as the Active node, is cloned twice to a Passive node and to a Witness node. The vCenter Server Appliance has provided vCenter High Availability (HA) with vSphere 6.5 onwards. VMware announced feature HA for the vCenter Server with vSphere 6.5 version, and the High Availability feature is available only with VCSA not with windows based vCenter Server.

And until the issue fixed you must manage all the ESXi hosts individually and it’s a difficult task if the number hosts are high. Many of VMware infrastructure may face an issue like a crash of vCenter Server or vCenter Server is unable to start etc. Also, the active-passive architecture of the vCenter HA solution will help to reduce downtime significantly when the patching of the vCenter Server Appliance required.Īs we are aware that vCenter Server is an important part of vSphere Infrastructure for central management and using their advanced features to provide availability. VCenter High Availability (vCenter HA) protects vCenter Server Appliance against host and hardware failures.

Vsphere ha configuration