One of my client is considering to move the application from Solaris based OS under Linux OS and virtualize them using VMware vSphere. The requirement is to have the most efficient way how to monitor the application status and react on any failure asap. Taking into account such requirements, one of the considerations should be to think about leveraging the VMware vSphere App HA feature.
VMware vSphere App HA was introduced in vSphere 5.5 and it brings a possibility to monitor a pre-defined list of service and based on the actual policy to perform corrective actions. The action can be either to restart the service or restart the Virtual Machine if the service fails to start. You can define how long the App HA should be waiting until it initiates the VM restart. Restarting the VM is an optional feature as well as resetting the Virtual Machine if the service is unstable. By unstable service is meant such a service that failed to start in a certain time frame. The number of failures and time frame can be specified.
The last version of VMware vSphere App HA 1.1.1 doesn’t bring any additional features comparing to version 1.1 but it’s solving the critical security vulnerability in the Bash shell. For more information you can refer to this KB: 2091087
There are two main components which has to be deployed: Hyperic monitors applications and enforces App HA policies. App HA stores and manages policies. Both are delivered as virtual appliances and available in the OVF format. Additionally each virtual machine on which you want to monitor the service needs to have the Hyperic agent installed, which contains the specification of the monitored application.
The main consideration whether the VMware vSphere App HA can be used in your environment is to validate the supported services. If the service is on the list you are ready to proceed with the implementation. VMware plans to enlarge the list of supported services with each release. You can also add a custom service to the Hyperic appliance and configure it for monitoring.
| Service Name | Supported Versions | Supported OS |
|---|---|---|
| Apache Tomcat | 6.0, 7.0 | Windows, Linux |
| IIS | 6., 7., 8. | Windows |
| Microsoft SQL | 2005, 2008, 2008R2, 2012 | Windows |
| Apache HTTP Server | 2.2 | Windows, Linux |
| SharePoint | 2007, 2010 | Windows |
| SpringSource tc Runtime | 6.0, 7.0 | Windows, Linux |
| PostgreSQL | 8.x, 9.x | Windows, Linux |
| Oracle | 10 g2, 11 g2 | Windows, Linux |
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