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Proxmox High Availability
Proxmox High Availability

Proxmox High Availability: Discover how to introduce, design, and implement high availability clusters for your business without hassle

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Proxmox High Availability

Chapter 2. Getting Started with a High Availability (HA) Environment

After Chapter 1, Basic Concepts of a Proxmox Virtual Environment, you might be excited to know how much more can we do with the help of Proxmox. Maybe you are already planning to virtualize your existing server with the help of Proxmox. Wait! Isn't it dangerous to centralize all servers in one physical machine? If you are an experienced system administrator, you must've been told to avoid a single point of failure; you have to minimize the number of services on a physical machine. We are now violating this rule; how should we solve this problem? In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • What is a high availability environment?
  • Introducing a Proxmox VE cluster
  • Hardware requirements for a Proxmox cluster
  • How does Proxmox provide HA capacity?

What is a high availability (HA) environment?

If there is a single point of failure, can we simply add another identical server to solve it? The answer to this question is not as simple as a yes or a no. Even if we install the same software on two identical machines, how can we synchronize the data between them? It is not ideal to copy new data to the backup server manually. That's why the HA environment was created.

What is availability?

What does availability mean? Let's take a look at the formula to calculate the availability; we need to divide the subtraction of Downtime duration (DD) from Expected uptime (EU) with Expected uptime (EU) and then multiply it by 100. Availability is expressed as a percentage of uptime in a year. The formula is as follows:

Note

What is availability?

The terms used in the formula are explained as follows:

  • Downtime duration (DD): This refers to the number of hours for which the system is unavailable
  • Expected uptime (EU): This refers to the expected system availability; normally...

Introducing a Proxmox VE cluster

Now, we have some idea about how to measure the availability level for a server; increasing the availability is very important for us. Is it possible for Proxmox to deal with this task? Yes, of course, but it is only available in cluster mode. The basic difference between single instance versus clusters under Proxmox is as follows:

Product

Proxmox VE

Proxmox VE Cluster

Number of nodes

1

2 (minimum)

Quorum disk

No

Yes

Storage

Local

Shared

HA

No

Yes

Unlike running with a single Proxmox instance, we need to provide shared storage for the cluster to keep the data of virtual machines. In our configuration, we would like to use a package called DRBD, which allows us to use local storage from both servers to form a shared RAID 1 storage. The data synchronization will automatically be managed by the DRBD package. So, we don't need to purchase additional network storage for our testing.

Introduction to DRBD

DRBD is a short form for Distributed Replicated...

System requirements for the Proxmox cluster

So, we have talked so much about the Proxmox cluster. To use this mode, we have to first prepare at least two machines that are installed with Proxmox VE. If we want to have a basic testing platform, what would be the minimum requirement for our machines?

The minimum system requirements as listed on the Proxmox website are as follows:

  • CPU: 64-bit (Intel EMT64 or AMD64)
  • Intel VT/AMD-V capable CPU/Mainboard (for KVM)
  • Minimum 1 GB RAM
  • Hard drive
  • One NIC

However, I would recommend that you have at least 2 GB memory if you want to test online migration on the Windows platform.

For a production environment, the following hardware is suggested by Proxmox:

  • CPU: The CPU must support 64-bit (Intel EMT64 or AMD64), multicore CPU is recommended, and Intel VT/AMD-V capable CPU/mainboard is required (for KVM support)
  • 8 GB RAM is good; the more the better
  • Hardware RAID with battery backup unit (BBU) or flash-based protection (software RAID is not officially supported by...

HA capability for Proxmox with a two-node cluster

In this section, I will show you how a Proxmox cluster helps us in enhancing the system availability. Assume that we are building a cluster with two active member nodes, which means virtual machines are running on both the server nodes. Let's take a look at the following structure:

HA capability for Proxmox with a two-node cluster

As we mentioned in the section on system requirements, we need at least two physical servers connected with a network switch, and we need SAN storage to save virtual disk images. This is the minimal requirement to build a cluster. With this set of hardware, we can successfully install Proxmox in cluster mode. However, is it built with high availability? Unfortunately, it is not; let's see what happens when we cannot connect our network switch due to misconfiguration or hardware problems:

HA capability for Proxmox with a two-node cluster

Right now, both servers think that the other side is out of service, as SRV1 and SRV2 cannot contact each other. What will they do? They will try to migrate the virtual...

Summary

In this chapter, we talked about the types of system downtime and their impact and how to measure and increase the level of availability. One of the most important features, live migration, was also explained briefly. Finally, we went through the cluster filesystem in order to know how Proxmox maintains its configuration files. In the next chapter, we will talk about the key components that will be used when we build the cluster, including the DRDB device, reliable network, and a fencing device.

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Description

If you want to know the secrets of virtualization and how to implement high availability on your services, this is the book for you. For those of you who are already using Proxmox, this book offers you the chance to build a high availability cluster with a distributed filesystem to further protect your system from failure.

What you will learn

  • Design and plan a high availability cluster from scratch with guidelines on hardware and software preparation
  • Work with the Proxmox virtual environment and learn the concepts on KVM and openVZ
  • Build your own network RAID 1 device with DRBD technology from concepts to practical approach
  • Install, configure, and integrate distributed filesystems with Gluster and Ceph on Proxmox
  • Test and troubleshoot different levels of system failures for the Proxmox cluster
  • Migrate your existing system over different platforms including Windows, Linux, and even virtualized platforms like as VMware
  • Perform recovery for a failed Proxmox cluster from backup configuration files

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Oct 31, 2014
Length: 258 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783980895
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Product Details

Publication date : Oct 31, 2014
Length: 258 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783980895
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Table of Contents

9 Chapters
1. Basic Concepts of a Proxmox Virtual Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Getting Started with a High Availability (HA) Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Key Components for Building a Proxmox VE Cluster Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Configuring a Proxmox VE Cluster Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Testing on a Proxmox Cluster Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. System Migration of an Existing System to a Proxmox VE Cluster Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Disaster Recovery on a Proxmox VE Cluster Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Troubleshooting on a Proxmox Cluster Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.3
(4 Ratings)
5 star 25%
4 star 75%
3 star 0%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
Tom Jan 14, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Proxmox High Availability is maybe not a book for beginners who are testing their first virtualization setups (although it covers some basics), but for admins that already have some experience in this environment.It definitely gives good advice as well as really good hints and examples in setting up clustered servers.What I do like most about the book is that it does not only explain Proxmox itself but also how to install drdb, glusterfs, (clustered filesystems) etc..So everything you need to build a complex and robust environment is included here.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Matteo Jan 19, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
This is a good book to start using and planning/designing Proxmox clusters, giving you all the basics on storage, networking and compute setup for creating a safe and reliable enviroment, avoiding design and implementation errors if you are not a Proxmox expert. This book is also a good starting point to evaluate virtualization at low cost for home/SME enviroments without the CAPEX of VMware or Hyper-V. There are some minor faults with some diagrams but nothing major, use the book as a starting point for your lab and grow your skills over time
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Juan Vicente Herrera Ruiz de Alejo Jan 13, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
This book, Proxmox High Availability, is recommended for people that have expertise working with ProxmoxYou can find a detailed explanation about how to getting started to build a Proxmox HA environment with Proxmox VE Cluster, a useful explanation about how to migrate an existing system to a VE Cluster, disaster recovery of the cluster and a last section about troubleshooting.It is a well written book with practical and real examples and definitely worth a shot.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
k0d3g3ar Mar 12, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
Good book. Definitely a must have for anyone doing more than 1 Proxmox server installation. However if you are just new to the topic, this is probably way too much detail. Also I found it lacking when dealing with troubleshooting clustering in PM. This is a big topic that most admins need some help with. A really good approach to troubleshooting in the book would go a long way to help here. Otherwise its solid, complete and well worth investing in.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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