https://cliffcahill.com

First of  all, there are a few prerequisites that are required before your configure VCHA

1. A dedicated port group for HA traffic preferably on a separate VLAN
2. A Range of IP addresses from the subnet / VLAN define above
3. A Minumum of 3 ESXi hosts in the cluster that will contain the vCenter, Peer, and Witness as the configuration creates some anti affinity rules that separate out the machines.

I have a MGMT Cluster called AMP-Core will host all my MGMT VMS. I have created a Port Group with a dedicated VLAN 103 on each host. and my Address range will be 192.168.103.x – I only need 3 address from this range to configure VCHA one each for

1. VCSA
2. VCSA Peer
3. VCSA Witness

To Start the HA configuration

Click on the vCenter Marked “1” on the graphic below. The Configure Tab and finally on the Configure button.

Select Basic

Specify an IP address and Mask from the VCHA subnet as discussed previously. – See Prerequisite number 2 above.

Specify an IP address for the peer and witness VM that will be deployed as part of this process. Again choose from the HA subnet.

Click Next and select VM Host and Datastore placement and ensure all compatibility checks are validated with out fail.

Click next to see an overview of configuration.

Click Finish to complete.

Once Complete. Replication begins

Replication is completed

Initiate Failover.

During HA Failover.

When I refreshed the browser during failover.

Failover took about 5 mins total – Notice the Active Node has changed as expected.