The clustering configuration table displayed at www.vmware.com/support/esx25/doc/admin/esx25admin_cluster_setup_esx.html#999125
indicates that for multihost clustering using clustered virtual disks, "The LUN must have a single path." This was true for ESX Server releases prior to 2.5, but it is no longer a requirement.
Here is the table from the Administration Guide with the corrected information. This table summarizes additional, important points for using Microsoft clustering software with ESX Server.
Area | Component | Single-Host Clustering | Multihost Clustering |
---|---|---|---|
Non-clustered disks | Virtual machine and swap (paging) file | Must be on local storage, not on a SAN Must be a non-clustered disk | |
Non-clustered virtual disks (.vmdk) | Must reside on a public VMFS volume Must use VMFS label notation Virtual adapter must be set to shared mode = none | ||
Non-clustered raw device (disk) mapping | Revision must be ESX Server 2.5 or higher Must reside on a public VMFS volume Must use VMFS label notation Disk must be in persistent mode DeviceType must be scsi-nonpassthru-rdm or scsi-passthru-rdm | ||
Non-clustered raw device (disk) | Use raw device mapping instead, if on ESX Server 2.5 or higher | ||
Clustered disks | Clustered virtual disks (.vmdk) | Must use VMFS label notation Virtual adapter must be in shared mode = virtual The LUN must host only one VMFS file system The VMFS volume must be dedicated to the cluster Must reside on public VMFS volume | Must have been created withvmkfstools -z Must use the vmhba:: notation, not the VMFS label notation. Virtual adapter must be set to shared mode = physical Must reside on its own physical LUN The LUN must host only one VMFS file system The shared virtual disk must be the only file on this VMFS volume The VMFS volume must be in shared mode The VMFS volume must have only one physical extent |
| Clustered non-pass-through raw device mapping | Revision must be ESX Server 2.5 or higher Must reside on a public VMFS volume Must use VMFS label notation Disk must be in persistent mode DeviceType must be scsi-nonpassthru-rdm Virtual adapter must be set to shared mode = virtual | Not supported |