VMWARE VSPHERE 7.

0:
INSTALL, CONFIGURE, MANAGE

Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

Document Version: 2020-11-04

Copyright © 2020 Network Development Group, Inc.

www.netdevgroup.com

NETLAB+ is a registered trademark of Network Development Group, Inc.

VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc.

Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3
Objectives............................................................................................................................ 3
Lab Topology....................................................................................................................... 4
Lab Settings ......................................................................................................................... 5
1 Prepare the Lab Environment..................................................................................... 6
2 Enable vSphere HA in a Cluster................................................................................. 13
3 Add your ESXi Host to the Cluster............................................................................. 15
4 View Information About the vSphere HA Cluster..................................................... 17
5 Configure Network Management Redundancy ........................................................ 19
6 Test the vSphere HA Functionality ........................................................................... 29
7 View the vSphere HA Cluster Resource Usage ......................................................... 36
8 Configure the Percentage of Resource Degradation to Tolerate ............................. 38

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

Introduction

In this lab, you will become familiar with the vSphere Client.

Objectives

 Prepare the Lab Environment

 Enable vSphere HA in a Cluster
 Add your ESXi host to a Cluster
 View Information About the vSphere HA Cluster
 Configure Network Management Redundancy
 Test the vSphere HA Functionality
 View the vSphere HA Cluster Resource Usage
 Configure the Percentage of Resource Degradation to Tolerate

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

Lab Topology

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

Lab Settings

The information in the table below will be needed in order to complete the lab. The
task sections below provide details on the use of this information.

Virtual Machine IP Address Account Password

sa-esxi-01 eth0: 172.20.10.51 root Train1ng$

sa-esxi-02 eth0: 172.20.10.52 root Train1ng$

sa-aio eth0: 172.20.10.10 sysadmin vmware123

sa-student eth0: 172.20.10.80 sysadmin vmware123

sa-vcsa eth0: 172.20.10.94 [email protected] vmware123

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

1 Prepare the Lab Environment

In this task, you will migrate virtual machine storage for Linux-01 and Linux-02 to the
iSCSI-LUN0 datastore.

1. Launch the sa-student virtual machine to access the graphical login screen.

To launch the console window for a virtual machine, you may access by
either clicking on the machine’s graphic image from the topology page
or by clicking on the machine’s respective tab from the navigation bar.

2. Log in as sysadmin using the password vmware123.

3. Launch the Mozilla Firefox web browser by either clicking on the icon shortcut
found on the bottom toolbar or by navigating to Start Menu > Internet > Firefox
Web Browser.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

4. Notice the homepage is automatically configured to load the URL address of the
VMware vCenter Server Appliance (sa-vcsa virtual machine). Click on the LAUNCH
VSPHERE CLIENT (HTML5) button to launch the vSphere Client.

If you cannot successfully load the VMware Getting Started webpage,

then please wait an additional 3-5 minutes and refresh the page to
continue. During this time, the vCenter Server Appliance is still
booting up and requires extra time to initialize.

5. In the Username text field, type [email protected] and in the Password text
field, type vmware123. Click on LOGIN.

You may ignore the “browser-OS combination” warning message

presented on the VMware vCenter Single Sign-On page and continue
moving forward with the lab.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

6. Click on the VMs and Templates tab. Expand the Datacenter object and right-click
Linux-01. Click Migrate.

7. In the Migrate window, on the Select the migration type step, choose Change
storage only. Click Next.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

8. On the Select storage step, select iSCSI-LUN0 and select Thin Provision as the virtual
disk format. Click Next.

9. On the Ready to complete step, review the information and click Finish.

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10. In the navigator pane, right-click Linux-02 and select Migrate.

11. In the Migrate window, on the Select the migration type step, choose Change
storage only. Click Next.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

12. On the Select storage step, select iSCSI-LUN0 and select Thin Provision as the virtual
disk format. Click Next.

13. On the Ready to complete step, review the information and click Finish.

14. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and verify Linux-01 and Linux-02 have migrated
successfully before continuing to the next step.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

15. Leave the vSphere Web Client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

2 Enable vSphere HA in a Cluster

In this task, you will enable vSphere HA on the Lab Cluster to achieve higher levels of
virtual machine availability than each ESXi host can provide individually.

1. From the dropdown Menu, select Host and Clusters.

2. Expand the Datacenter object, select Lab Cluster and click the Configure tab. Under
Services, select vSphere Availability.

3. On the vSphere Availability pane, click EDIT.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

4. In the Edit Cluster Settings window, toggle the vSphere HA button to on and click
OK.

5. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the vSphere HA configuration tasks to
complete.

6. On the Configure tab, verify vSphere HA is Turned ON.

7. Leave the vSphere Web Client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

3 Add your ESXi Host to the Cluster

In this task, you will add sa-esxi-01 and sa-esxi-02 to the Lab Cluster.

1. In the navigation pane, drag sa-esxi-01.vclass.local to Lab Cluster.

2. In the navigation pane, drag sa-esxi-02.vclass.local to Lab Cluster.

3. In the Recent Tasks pane, monitor the progress of moving the ESXi host to the Lab
Cluster.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

4. Expand the Lab Cluster object and verify that sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local appear.

5. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for vSphere HA configuration tasks to
complete.

6. Leave the vSphere Web Client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

4 View Information About the vSphere HA Cluster

In this task, you view status and configuration information about the Lab Cluster. You
notice that the ESXi hosts in the cluster have only one management network port.

1. In the Lab Cluster window, click the Monitor tab.

2. Under vSphere HA, select Summary. Verify the Master host is sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

3. Under vSphere HA, select Heartbeat. Verify that NFS-1 and iSCSI-LUN0 are showing
as the datastores.

4. Under vSphere HA, select Configuration Issues and review the errors or warnings
that are displayed. Hover over either of the ESXi hosts and notice the message. The
message is identical for each host.

You should see warning messages that each ESXi host has no
management network redundancy. Currently, each ESXi host has a
single management network port. vSphere HA still works if an ESXi
host is configured with one management network port, but a second
management network port is necessary for management network
port redundancy. Configuring management network port redundancy
is also a best practice.

5. Leave the vSphere Web Client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

5 Configure Network Management Redundancy

In this task, you configure a second management network port on sa-esxi-01.vclass.local

and sa-esxi-02.vclass.local to create redundancy and remove the single point of failure.

1. On the Hosts and Clusters tab, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local. In the right pane, click
Configure.

2. Select Virtual switches under Networking in the middle pane.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

3. Click the Add Networking button on vSwitch0.

4. In the Add Networking window, on the Select connection type step, select VMkernel
Network Adapter. Click Next.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

5. On the Select target device step, click New standard switch. Click Next.

6. On the Create a Standard Switch step, click the green + sign to add a physical
adapter to the switch.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

7. Select vmnic1 for the vSphere vMotion network and click OK.

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8. Back on the Add Networking window, review the information shown. Ensure that
vmnic1 appears underneath Active adapters and click Next.

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9. On the Port properties step, enter vMotion in the Network label text box. Select the
vMotion and Management checkbox and click Next.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

10. On the IPv4 settings step, select to Use static IPv4 settings and use the information
below to make configurations:
a. IPv4 address: 172.20.11.51
b. Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
c. Default Gateway: Check the Override default gateway for this adapter
checkbox and enter 172.20.11.10.
d. Click Next.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

11. On the Ready to complete step, review the information and click Finish.

12. In the Virtual switches pane, verify that the new virtual switch for vSphere vMotion
migration is listed.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

13. In the navigation pane, right-click sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and select Reconfigure for
vSphere HA.

14. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and wait for the reconfiguration task to complete.

15. Repeat steps 1 – 14 for sa-esxi-02.vclass.local using the vMotion VMkernel port IPv4
address for sa-esxi-02 as 172.20.11.52. All other steps remain the same.
16. In the navigation pane, select the Lab Cluster and click the Monitor tab.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

17. In the Lab Cluster pane under vSphere HA, select Configuration Issues.

18. Notice the previous management Configuration Issues are no longer displayed.

19. Leave the vSphere Web Client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

6 Test the vSphere HA Functionality

In this task, set up vSphere HA to monitor the cluster environment and detect hardware
failures.

1. While in the Lab Cluster pane, click on the Monitor tab. Under vSphere HA, select
Summary and verify the name of the master host as sa-esxi-01.vclass.local.

2. In the navigation pane under Lab Cluster, right-click Linux-01 and select Power >
Power On.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

3. In the navigation pane under Lab Cluster, right-click Linux-02 and select Power >
Power On.

4. In the navigation pane, select Lab Cluster and click the Monitor tab. Under vSphere
HA, select Summary. Click Refresh and verify the Protected field matches the
number of powered-on VMs within the cluster and that the Unprotected field is 0.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

5. On the Hosts and Clusters tab, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local. Click on the VMs tab
and verify that Linux-01 appears under sa-esxi-01.

6. Simulate a host failure by rebooting the master ESXi host. In the navigation pane,
right-click sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and select Power > Reboot.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

7. In the Reboot Host window, enter Testing vSphere HA as the reason and click OK.

8. In the navigator pane, select Lab Cluster and click the Monitor tab. Click Tasks &
Events and select Events in the middle pane.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

9. Notice the cluster entries are sorted by time and that the entries appeared when the
host failure was detected. The initial messages from the hosts might show failures.
These messages indicate that the virtual machines on the downed host have failed.
The virtual machines take 1 to 2 minutes to restart successfully on the new host. You
may need to refresh the vSphere Web Client to view these events.

10. In the navigator pane, select the slave ESXi host; in this case, it is sa-esxi-
02.vclass.local. Click the VMs tab and ensure that the Virtual Machines button is
selected.

While working in vCSA, it may take 30 to 60 seconds for configuration

changes to take effect.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

11. Notice that Linux-01 has successfully migrated over to the slave ESXi host and
powered on properly.

If you were to simulate a host failure on sa-esxi-02.vclass.local, the

running virtual machines would migrate to sa-esxi-01.vclass.local. For
the purpose of this lab, you will only simulate a host failure on sa-esxi-
01.vclass.local.

12. Select Lab Cluster in the inventory and click the Monitor tab. Under vSphere HA,
select Summary from the middle pane. Notice the master ESXi host changed to sa-
esxi-02.vclass.local.

13. Monitor the original master ESXi host in the navigator pane until it is fully running
again.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

14. Leave vSphere Web Client open to continue with the next task.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

7 View the vSphere HA Cluster Resource Usage

In this task, you examine the CPU and memory resource usage information of the Lab
Cluster.

1. While in the vSphere Web Client, select Lab Cluster in the navigation pane. Click the
Monitor tab in the Lab Cluster pane. Under Resource Allocation, select CPU.

2. On the CPU Reservation Details pane, review the information such as Total
Reservation Capacity, Used Reservation, and Available Reservation. In the virtual
machines pane, verify that the CPU reservation is not set on the virtual machines.
The Reservation column should show 0 (MHz).

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

3. Under Resource Allocation, select Memory.

4. On the Memory Reservation Details, review the information such as Total

Reservation Capacity, Used Reservation, and Available Reservation. In the virtual
machines pane, verify that the memory reservation is not set on the virtual
machines. The Reservation column should show 0 (MB).

5. Leave the vSphere Web Client open and continue to the next task.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

8 Configure the Percentage of Resource Degradation to Tolerate

In this task, you will specify the percentage of resource degradation to tolerate, and you
will verify that a message appears when the reduction threshold is met. You will also
enable DRS to use this admission control option.

1. In the navigation pane, right-click Lab Cluster and select Settings.

2. In the right pane under Services, select vSphere DRS and click Edit.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

3. Toggle the vSphere DRS button on and from the Automation Level dropdown, select
Manual. Slide the Migration Threshold to Aggressive (More Frequent vMotions) and
uncheck Enable for Virtual Machine Automation. Click OK.

4. Under Services, select vSphere Availability and click Edit beside vSphere HA is
Turned ON.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

5. Select the Admission Control tab. Enter 0 for the Performance degradation VMs
tolerate text box.

If you reduce the threshold to 0%, a warning will be generated when

cluster usage exceeds the available cluster capacity.

6. In the Define host failover capacity by dropdown menu, select Dedicated failover
hosts. Click Add.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

7. In the Add Failover Host window, select sa-esxi-01.vclass.local and sa-esxi-

02.vclass.local. Click OK.

8. On the Edit Cluster Settings window, verify the settings are correct. Click OK.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

9. In the navigation pane, select Linux-01. In the Guest OS pane, click Launch Web
Console from the Summary tab. You may need to scroll down in the Linux-01
window to view the Guest OS pane.

10. In the Linux-01 Web Console, log in as sysadmin and type vmware123 for the
password. Click Log In.

11. Open a terminal window by clicking on the Terminal Emulator icon located in the
center of the Linux-01 desktop.

12. Change directory to the tools directory.

Linux01:/home/sysadmin# cd tools

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

13. Execute the cpubusy.pl script.

Linux01:/home/sysadmin/tools# perl cpubusy.pl

14. Repeat steps 8 – 11 for Linux-02 and then continue to the next step.

For this task to complete, you must start two cpubusy scripts on
Linux-01 and Linux-02 to trigger a message about the configured
failover resources in the Lab Cluster.

15. Select Lab Cluster and click the Monitor tab. Under vSphere DRS, select
Recommendations. On the DRS Recommendations window, click RUN DRS NOW.

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Lab 23: Using vSphere HA

16. In the Lab Cluster window, click the Summary tab.

17. You should see one of two messages confirming that you have successfully
configured the VMs to meet the reduction threshold. You may need to wait 4 to 6
minutes for either message to appear.

The errors presented mean there are not enough resources available
to satisfy the failover of the VMs.

18. The lab is now complete; you may end your reservation.

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