High-availability for XenServer without Shared Storage

by Adam Steinhoff on March 14, 2009 in Very Technical

Twitter Question From Pal_Pal

pal_pal asked Twitter a question about XenServer: Does Marathon Everrun on XenServerprovides HA for Windows 2003 VMs without requiring a shared storage????

What is Marathon everRun?

According to Marathon’s website:

everRun VM completely automates VM availability setup, configuration, fault detection and policy management. Automated setup and configuration eliminates the manual configuration other availability solutions require. Point to the VM you want to protect, and everRun’s setup wizard does the rest. You can fully deploy everRun VM from bare metal in 30 minutes or less.

everRun VM’s embedded policy management automatically handles all system, network and disk I/O failures. Failures are automatically and immediately addressed – without IT intervention.

It’s Built Into Citrix XenServer

Citrix and Marathon partnered in 2008. They teamed up and integrated the everRun product into XenServer’s standard distribution. If you purchased the Enterprise edition of Citrix XenServer, you have the ability to auto-restart virutal machines on any host after a failure. This type of functionality DOES require shared storage.

However, the upgraded version of everRun – activated by a license key – enables the ability to have virtual machines protected across different physical servers with different storage topologies.

True High Availability without Shared Storage?

Yes. By having the virtual machines actually copied to a different storage device on a different phsyical server, you have added an additional level of HA: storage protection.

Take a look at this video on Marathon’s website. It does a very good job of explaining the architecture. (pal_pal: note the hard drives attached to each server in the video)

Need Help?

We specialize in designing, implementing and supporting Citrix XenServer with and without high-availability. Contact us if you want to talk about an upcoming project you are working on.

Telephone: 561-491-5750

Email: sales@DedicatedIT.com

Or for immediate help, Chat with a Solutions Expert

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Tags: Citrix XenServer, high-availability, Marathon everRun, twitter

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

S. FL Business Owner - March 14, 2009
@pal_pal Yes, everRun can provide HA to XenServer without shared storage. More information here: http://tinyurl.com/HAXenServerEverRun
MarathonTech - May 7, 2010
High-availability for XenServer without shared storage http://bit.ly/cMoKhu
MarathonTechnologies - May 7, 2010
High-availability for XenServer without shared storage http://bit.ly/cMoKhu

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