PCNS4 and vmware

[BillP]

Hi there,

I need some clarification of my configuration.

I have my PCNS 4 installed as VM virtual appliance on vSphere 5.5. ESX hosts are managed by vCenter Server (VM too). My vCenter Server database in on separate MS SQL server (VM too).

Let’s say UPS shutdown event occurred. I understand that PCNS only track vCenter vm and itself to shut down that vm’s as last. So he will shut down my sql server while shutting down all other vm’s first. After that my vCenter service will go down and vCenter won’t be operational? PCNS will then connect directly to my ESX hosts to shut down vm’s. Am I right?

If PCNS shutting down vm’s per esx will he use VM Startup/Shutdown setting from host configuration? Does it have to be configured to shut down vms gracefully? What if hosts are clustered with DRS on. That setting per host is outdated every time DRS will migrate vms for some reason.

Same question to Startup. PCNS takes care of powering up vcenter server first for example to perform vApps startup but vCenter service won't start without database server up first so PCNS will start my vms by connecting to esx hosts?

[BillP · Accepted solution]

Your tricky perdicerment will be eased in the next release of PCNS. 4.1 will allow you to prioritize your VMs to say which ones go down first and last. It is not full shutdown sequancing but there is a high, medium and low VM priorty which the you could set the SQL server to be shut down last. If it is shut down last the only thing that will remain to be shut down is vCenter, PCNS and the hosts. PCNS will be able to do this without the help of vCenter server and you will not need to worry anout the hosts local shutdown peramiters. 

Currently I believe 4.1 is due out late Q3 or Q4 of this year.