MS-SQL Windows Server Failover Clustering on VCF - Best Practices

MS-SQL Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) is used for MS-SQL High Availability deployment on VMware VCF. 

Traditional (historical) WSFC deployment model is Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Always On Failover Cluster Instance (FCI). Always On Failover Cluster Instance is a Microsoft SQL Server high-availability technology that provides instance-level protection. This means that the entire SQL Server installation including binaries, system databases (like master and msdb), user databases, logins, and SQL Server Agent jobs, is protected and fails over as a single cohesive unit to another node in the cluster if a failure occurs. 

An FCI uses a virtual identity (virtual network name and IP address) that is independent of the underlying physical or virtual node names, allowing applications to connect seamlessly regardless of which node is active.

An FCI requires shared storage accessible by all nodes in the cluster and supporting SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations (PR). vSAN ESA is a perfect fit for such shared storage.

Let's document typical topics and best practices about WSFC/FCI.

Virtualization of Microsoft SQL and AD

Lot of customers are still dependent on Microsoft operating systems and applications. The most business critical applications are Active Directory and Microsoft SQL Server. Virtualization of these business critical systems is easy up to some scale and availability. When the scalability, performance and availability are top priority, your Technical Design is starting to be more complex. That's exactly where the fun starts,

Following four documents are great sources for any virtualization of business critical Enterprise application on VMware Platform.

Private VLANs (PVLANs) in VMware vSphere ESXi

Private VLANs (PVLANs) provide a powerful way to improve network segmentation and security without creating a large number of traditional VLANs. They allow traffic isolation within a single logical VLAN, which is especially useful in multi-tenant environments, DMZs, and enterprise application tiers. 

PVLAN explained - Promiscuous, Community, Isolated

Let's dive deeper.