Today I added some vSphere 5.0 u1 hosts in a new created cluster, the SAN will be delivered next week so I didn’t have central storage, to finish my new cluster setup I configured HA and DRS. After configuring HA I received this warning message:

The number of heartbeat datastores for host is 0, which is less than required: 2

Solution:

To (temporary (until the SAN is installed)) hide the warning message I configured the HA – Advanced Option:

1. Log in to vCenter Server
2. Right-click the cluster and click Edit Settings
3. Click VMware HA > Advanced Options
4. Under Option, add an entry for das.ignoreInsufficientHbDatastore
5. Under Value, type: true

More information: VMware

sanderdaems

Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.

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The settings that NetApp recommends (across all ESX hosts) are:

– NFS.HeartbeatFrequency(NFS.HeartbeatDelta in vSphere) = 12
– NFS.HeartbeatTimeout = 5 (default)
– NFS.HeartbeatMaxFailures = 10

When the number of NFS datastores are increased, we also recommend increasing the heap values:
– Net.TcpipHeapSize =>’30’  to Net.TcpipHeapMax  => ‘120’

To automate this configuration I’ve wrote a PowerCLI script:

#====================================================================#
#   SCRIPT:        Configure_Advanced_NFS_parameters.ps1             #
#   FUNCTION:      Configure NFS / NetApp best practice              #
#   OWNER:         Sander Daems                                      #
#   VENDOR:        NetApp / FAS2040                                  #
#   VSPHERE:       5.0 Update 1 build 623860                         #
#   CREATED:       07/01/2013                                        #
#   MODIFIED:      20/03/2013                                        #
#   VERSION:       v.1.1                                             #
#====================================================================#
#   CHANGELOG:                                                       #
#                                                                    #
#    v.1.0                                                           #
#    - Created script;                                               #
#                                                                    #
#====================================================================#
#   HOST - Specify host and connect                                  #
#====================================================================#
$ESXiHost = Read-Host "Enter ESXi Host name or IP"
Connect-VIServer $ESXiHost
#====================================================================# 
#   ADVANCED - Update TCP Settings                                   #
#====================================================================#
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name Net.TcpipHeapSize -Value 32
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name Net.TcpipHeapMax -Value 128
#====================================================================#
#   ADVANCED - Update NFS Settings                                   #
#====================================================================#
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name NFS.MaxVolumes -Value 256
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name NFS.HeartbeatMaxFailures -Value 10
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name NFS.HeartbeatFrequency -Value 12
Set-VMHostAdvancedConfiguration -VMHost $ESXiHost -Name NFS.HeartbeatTimeout -Value 5
#====================================================================#
#   SCRIPT FINISHED                                        #
#====================================================================#
Write-Host "Script finished..." -foregroundcolor yellow
#====================================================================#

More information / source: NetApp Whitepaper

More information / source: VMware KB , VMware KB, VMware KB

sanderdaems

Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant by UNICA ICT Solutions. Sander has over 15 years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization and modern worksplace.

More Posts - Website

Follow Me:

Neverfail’s award winning technology powers VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat. This was presented on VMworld Europe 2009. I followed some sessions about it; it will be a promising high availability extension for vCenter Server.

Use and Configure with Ease

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat has no hardware configuration dependencies and automatically detects standard VMware vCenter Server components upon installation, providing instant monitoring and protection.

Ensure Availability and Disaster Recovery

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat delivers high availability and disaster recovery for VMware vCenter Server and all of its components across the LAN or WAN, including the database and licensing server and plug-ins like VMware vCenter Update Manager, eliminating costly, complex outages. VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat protects and recovers the VMware vCenter Server database instance, even if it’s installed on a separate server.

Protect your Infrastructure

Minimize the risk of downtime for VMware vCenter Server and assure access to critical components such as VMware vMotion and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). Through continuous monitoring, VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat provides the broadest range of protection against application or operator errors, operating system or hardware failure, or external events. You can extend service monitoring and high availability to components such as plug-ins, VMware License Server, VMware vCenter Update Manager, and third-party tools.

Daniel Buonocore

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