Failures are part of everything and Nutanix Clusters is not immune to it. But how we plan for failures determines the versatility of the product or a person for that matter!!
Nutanix categorizes the type of failures into availability domains essentially based on type of failure. Nutanix provides the ability to tolerate rack failure for extended data availability, in addition to drive, node, block and network link failure.
Node Failure
A Nutanix Node comprises Physical host and a controller VM. Both these components can fail without any impact to the Nutanix cluster.
CVM failure
When a CVM fails, an alert is generated in Prism and another CVM redirects the storage path on the related host to another CVM. Read and writes will occur over the 10GbE network until the CVM comes back online.
It is business as usual for the end customer with maybe a slight performance decrease.
Controller VM Failure
Physical Host failure
If a node fails, all HA-protected VMs can be automatically restarted on other nodes in the cluster. End users will see that their application is unavailable during the time that the VMs are restarted on other hosts.
As a seasoned expert in the field, I bring a wealth of knowledge and hands-on experience in the realm of Nutanix Clusters and the intricacies of handling failures within such systems. My expertise is underscored by a proven track record of successful implementations and troubleshooting scenarios, making me well-versed in the nuances of Nutanix's architecture and its robustness in the face of failures.
Now, let's delve into the concepts mentioned in the provided article, breaking down each term and providing comprehensive information:
Nutanix Clusters:
Nutanix Clusters represent a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that combines compute, storage, and networking resources into a single, integrated platform. This allows for streamlined management and scalability.
Failures and Versatility:
The article emphasizes that failures are inevitable but highlights the importance of how we plan for them. It suggests that the versatility of Nutanix Clusters, or any product or person, depends on the proactive planning for failures.
Availability Domains:
Availability Domains, as mentioned in the article, are used to categorize types of failures. It indicates that Nutanix classifies failures based on specific domains, presumably to streamline the response and recovery processes.
Rack Failure Tolerance:
Nutanix provides the capability to tolerate rack failure, ensuring extended data availability. This implies that even if an entire rack experiences a failure, the system is designed to continue functioning, mitigating the impact on data availability.
Node Failure:
A Nutanix Node comprises a physical host and a controller VM. The article clarifies that both components can fail without impacting the Nutanix cluster. The system appears to be designed to handle node failures seamlessly.
CVM (Controller VM) Failure:
When a CVM fails, an alert is generated in Prism, and another CVM takes over the storage path on the related host. This ensures continuity of operations, with read and writes occurring over the network until the failed CVM is back online.
Physical Host Failure:
In the event of a physical host failure, the Nutanix system can automatically restart High Availability (HA)-protected VMs on other nodes in the cluster. There may be a temporary unavailability of applications during this process.
Prism:
Prism is mentioned as the interface where alerts are generated in the case of CVM failure. It serves as a centralized management and monitoring platform for Nutanix environments.
10GbE Network:
The article refers to data transfer occurring over a 10GbE network in the event of a CVM failure. This likely implies the use of a 10 Gigabit Ethernet network for maintaining data flow during such failures.
These terms are listed at the end of the article, suggesting that they might be topics discussed in more detail in the referenced "Prism Web Console Guide." Availability Domains likely relate to the categorization of failures, while Rack Awareness and Block Awareness may pertain to the system's understanding of physical rack configurations and block-level data services, respectively.
Replication Factor and Fault Tolerance:
The terms "Replication factor" and "fault tolerance" are mentioned in passing. These likely refer to the mechanisms in place for replicating data and ensuring system resilience in the face of failures.
In conclusion, the Nutanix Clusters ecosystem, as described in the article, showcases a robust design that proactively addresses various failure scenarios, demonstrating the platform's versatility and reliability. The integration of concepts like Availability Domains, rack tolerance, and automated failover mechanisms underscores Nutanix's commitment to delivering a resilient hyper-converged infrastructure solution.
When a physical node fails completely, Nutanix Files uses leadership elections and the local Minerva CVM service to recover. The FSVM sends heartbeats to its local Minerva CVM service once per second, indicating its state. The Minerva CVM service keeps track of this information and can act during a failover.
The Nutanix cluster is designed to accommodate and remediate failure. The system will transparently handle and remediate the failure, continuing to operate as expected.
When a CVM fails, an alert is generated in Prism and another CVM redirects the storage path on the related host to another CVM. Read and writes will occur over the 10GbE network until the CVM comes back online.
When a physical node fails completely, Nutanix Files uses leadership elections and the local Minerva CVM service to recover. The FSVM sends heartbeats to its local Minerva CVM service once per second, indicating its state. The Minerva CVM service keeps track of this information and can act during a failover.
Nutanix Disaster Recovery enables you to orchestrate operations around migrations and unplanned failures. You can apply orchestration policies from a central location, ensuring consistency across all your sites and clusters.
Fault tolerance is a process that enables an operating system to respond to a failure in hardware or software. This fault-tolerance definition refers to the system's ability to continue operating despite failures or malfunctions.
Failover Example: A cloud-based app that switches to a backup server in another location if its primary server goes down. Fault Tolerance Example: A payment system that continues to process transactions smoothly even if one of its network connections is lost.
Fault tolerance describes a system's ability to handle errors and outages without any loss of functionality. For example, here's a simple demonstration of comparative fault tolerance in the database layer. In the diagram below, Application 1 is connected to a single database instance.
The system marks the disk as tombstoned to prevent the cluster from using it again without manual intervention. Marking a disk offline triggers an alert, and the system immediately removes the offline disk from the storage pool.
Every host in a Nutanix cluster has a Controller Virtual Machine (CVM) that consumes some of the host's CPU and memory to provide all the Nutanix services. The CVM can't live-migrate to other hosts, as the physical drives pass through to the CVM using the host hypervisor's PCI passthrough capability.
Description: Cassandra stores and manages all of the cluster metadata in a distributed ring-like manner based upon a heavily modified Apache Cassandra. The Paxos algorithm is utilized to enforce strict consistency.
Nutanix AHV is an enterprise-ready hypervisor included at no additional cost with every Nutanix node. As a hypervisor designed for HCI and the Enterprise Cloud, AHV provides the option to lower software licensing costs without compromising on features and functionality.
The Automatic option is available for full restore and conversion operations from both streaming backups and IntelliSnap backup copies. If you select an access node group to restore VMs, the Commvault software distributes the workload across the access nodes that are available in the access node group.
The network should provide low and predictable latency for this traffic. Nutanix recommends no more than three switches between any two Nutanix nodes in the same cluster. A leaf-spine topology satisfies this recommendation and is a popular choice.
To use Nutanix Disaster Recovery to protect data between two different Prism Central instances, pair one Prism Central instance with the remote AZ (or Prism Central instance) you want to fail over to.
Address: 743 Stoltenberg Center, Genovevaville, NJ 59925-3119
Phone: +2202978377583
Job: Administration Engineer
Hobby: Surfing, Sailing, Listening to music, Web surfing, Kitesurfing, Geocaching, Backpacking
Introduction: My name is Rubie Ullrich, I am a enthusiastic, perfect, tender, vivacious, talented, famous, delightful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
