Multi-writer Shared / Clustered Disk for Windows or Oracle Cluster – vSphere / ESXi / vSAN 6.7.x

For the sake of this blog, it will be a Two VM’s Use Case, running on separate ESXi Hosts (Anti-Affinity Rule in Place)

The step of second node will apply on third / fourth node if to be introduced.

Environment

FS-VM1 – OS = Windows 2019 OS Disk 1 = 100 GB

FS-VM2 – OS = Windows 2019 OS Disk 1 = 100 GB

Created a thick provisioned eager zeroed storage policy as I was configuring on this setup on vSAN, thick disk is required for this setup to work as expected

Required disk for clustering:
Shared Disk 1 = 70 GB
Shared Disk 2 = 140 GB

Configuration Steps:

Shutdown Guest OS or Power Off FS-VM1 & FS-VM2

FS-VM1

• Edit Settings – FS-VM1
• Add New Devices > SCSI Controller
  • Select type: VMware Paravirtual
  • Select SCSI Bus sharing mode: Physical
• Add New Disk
  • Size: 70 GB (1:0)
  • Type: Thick provisioned eager zeroed (using thick policy)
  • Sharing: Multi-writer
  • Disk Mode: Independent – Persistent
  • Virtual Device Node: SCSI controller 1 = SCSI(1:0)
• Add New Disk
  • Size: 140 GB (1:1)
  • Type: Thick provisioned eager zeroed (using thick policy)
  • Sharing: Multi-writer
  • Disk Mode: Independent – Persistent
  • Virtual Device Node: SCSI controller 1 = SCSI(1:1)

Save Settings for VM by Pressing OK

FS-VM2

• Edit Settings – FS-VM2
• Add New Devices > SCSI Controller
  • Select type: VMware Paravirtual
  • Select SCSI Bus sharing mode: Physical
• Add “Existing Hard Disk”
  • Find for FS-VM1 Folder in Search Browser
  • Select 70 GB .vmdk
  • Sharing: Multi-writer
  • Disk Mode: Independent – Persistent
  • Virtual Device Node: SCSI controller 1 = SCSI(1:0)
• Add “Existing Hard Disk”
  • Find for FS-VM1 Folder in Search Browser
  • Select 140 GB .vmdk
  • Sharing: Multi-writer
  • Disk Mode: Independent – Persistent
  • Virtual Device Node: SCSI controller 1 = SCSI(1:1)

In case of vSAN it will be Storage Identifier ID with VM name and code.vmdk

Sample: [VxRail-Virtual-SAN-Datastore-8fe79a34-32432-45d4-affb-cdf6a37dd110] 62479960-6cf5-58d0-77bb-e4434bf848f0/FS-VM1-cXNb_1.vmdk

To further validate make sure it’s same path in FS-VM1 Disk File (VM Edit Settings > Hard Disk > Disk File)

Make sure configuration is identical on both VM’s such as SCSI Controller, SCSI Number, Multi-writer, Independent-Persistent etc.

Save Settings for VM by Pressing OK

Validation Steps

Power on both Virtual Machines

Login – FS-VM1 (RDP or Console Access)

• Navigate to Disk Management
• Validate Disks are Visible
• Rescan Disk
• Initialize Disk
• Create Partition

Login – FS-VM2 – Repeat same steps

• Navigate to Disk Management
• Validate Disks are Visible
• Rescan Disk
• Initialize Disk
• Create Partition

Servers are ready for you to configure your Clustering application