Fault Tolerance (FT) Implementation Checklist & Validation Tool (Site Survey Tool from VMware)

Here is the F.T Checklist (very handy) to get started with instant Implementations..


F.T is next level of H.A in vSphere
HA will power on the VM (causes reboot from beginning) on 2nd ESX host incase of 1st ESX (Native host of that VM) Fails..

But F.T will keep track of Memory changes on Primary ESX and keep replicating to to Secondary ESX Host (VM Memory - Standby) always. (LockStep Mechanism - Actually Vmware follows internally Record & Play Technology - inherited from VMware Player)  In case of 1st ESX Fails, same VM is instantly attached to 2nd ESX host (Completely Zero Downtime – Yeah, you heard it right, Zero downtime was not possible in HA)

I am excited to read between these lines & to implement this..

FT Check List --> http://ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1090-Fault-Tolerance-Checklist.html

In spite of having checklist verified, you my overlook a few..
Here is the trick of my sleeve, Just download and run the “Site Survey Tool” from VMware Shared utilities to validate F.T pre-requisites..

Provide your vCenter (IP / Hostname) --> as prompted by Site Survey Tool --> Select your Cluster in vCenter to run F.T Validations on your cluster

Tool will validate Proc Specs, Shared Storage, Thick Disk is there or not, Snapshot should not be in VM, more than single vCPU should not be there in VM and lot more..

Leave it tool to check it for you, post to which you may correct problems
(or else ensure to follow the F.T Checklist (link here) minimize issues)

Site Survey Tool Download link --> http://www.vmware.com/download/shared_utilities.html