Symantec knits VMware safety net Symantec says you will be able to virtualise the most critical business applications with confidence because it's providing the necessary safety net, Application HA. It's also sorted the virtual desktop image provisioning and storage problem with VirtualStore. The pitch is that there is a last mile problem in virtualising …
VMware offer FT when HA is not enough. Basically, you have a permanently running read only "shadow" of the live VM running with a constant streaming of the live VMs RAM being copied over to the shadow to keep it upto date.
If the live VM's host dies then the shadow becomes the live VM.
Of course if the live machine corrupts itself in some way then that will copy over live - mmm simultaneous blue screens!
Now you can also use application level clustering to guard against a single bad instance.
So what exactly are Symantec bringing to the party apart that is not already provided either by VMWare out of the box, or should be provided by the application/sysadmin?
VMWare/VCenter will only take action if the VM as a whole dies. You would need VCS within the VM to handle "application HA". This offering provides VCenter snap-in to give a single pane of glass for managing the VM as well as the applications running within the VM, and for optionally inducing VM-level actions should VCS detect a fault condition.
Like the article states, Vmware is only capable of machine failures, a purple screen of death. A BSOD is still an up machine. Symantec has the capability to run SQL queries, or HTTP GET commands, or even check SMTP connections to verify an application is up. This goes much deeper than traditional HA tools from the OS manufacturer.
. . . this were not a Symantec product, I could be really into it. Unfortunately, every Symantec product I've dealt with recently has been a pile of poo, and my concern here would be that I was introducing an additional failure point instead of providing additional availability. I would rather implement something like an application load balancer which could monitor for application availability and redirect traffic in the event that an application quit responding. If I could get Symantec's products out of my data center altogether, I would definitely do so, but the corporate overlords have mandated it.
.. I've become to hate SYMANTEC/NORTON. I don't trust them or there software to do what it says on the tin.
Endpoint Protection = Like using water as sun cream
Backup Exec = Try getting a MAC 10.6.4 back-up agent.... 10.6.... but not 10.6.4. Which tool at Symantec thinks any one uses the default out the box install & does not update.
So why would you trust them to look after your VM's?
Beer icon, because is the only thing that stops me flying to Mumbai where there call centres are & taking a big dump through there letter box.....
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