Stretched Clusters empower customers all around the world to bring their mission critical applications to VMware Cloud on AWS without compromising on availability or resiliency. This powerful technology has been a cornerstone of VMware Cloud. We previously announced a new low-cost entry to the service with the release of 4-Host Stretched Clusters. Today we’re excited to announce the final iteration of our effort to make Multi-AZ resiliency available to customers of any size. Entry scale Stretched Clusters now allow a Multi-AZ deployment to be created with as few as 2-Hosts!
When to use a 2-host Stretched Cluster
2-Host entry scale Stretched Clusters provide additional resiliency above and beyond a traditional Single-AZ SDDC. This is because the SLA carries no dependency on the underlying AZ. A Single-AZ non-stretched cluster offers a 99.9% availability guarantee, but only as long as the underlying AZ is available. If the AZ itself encounters an outage, the service would be unavailable until AWS restored the AZ.
A 2-host Stretched cluster has no such restriction. Even in the event of a complete AZ failure, we guarantee 99.9% availability. Furthermore, an entry scale stretched cluster is still a stretched cluster. Any 2-host stretched cluster can obtain the additional ‘9’ at any point by scaling up to a 6-host cluster and updating the storage policy to match the 99.99% SLA requirements.
Considerations
It is important to note that 2-host stretched clusters are currently a starting configuration. The service supports scale-out on 2-host using either the UI/API and or Elastic DRS. However, that scale event is one way. If scaled up to a 4-host stretched cluster for any reason the cluster cannot be scaled back down.
Summary
2-host Stretched Clusters enable customers to realize Multi-AZ resiliency without significantly increasing the resources requirements. If you’ve been considering VMware Cloud but found Single-AZ too risky and Multi-AZ too costly, then 2-Host Stretched Clusters maybe your just-right solution.
For more information related to VMware Cloud on AWS, here are some more learning resources for you:
- You can learn more about our VMware Cloud on AWS service at the VMware Cloud on AWS website or by viewing VMware Cloud on AWS: Overview.
- Follow us on Twitter @vmwarecloudaws and give us a shout with #VMWonAWS.
- Leverage the new VMware Cloud on AWS Techzone for curated technical documentation.
- Watch informative demos, overview videos, webinars and hear from our customers: VMware Cloud on AWS on YouTube.
- Try the VMware Cloud on AWS Lightening Lab for a first-hand immersive experience.
- Read our latest VMware Cloud on AWS blogs.
- Obtain the VMware Cloud on AWS Solution Brief and VMware Cloud on AWS TCO 1-pager.
- Follow the VMware Cloud on AWS release notes, VMware Site Recovery release notes and VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery release notes on continuing updates.
- Read Technical Guides on Operations, Applications, and Performance.
- Listen to latest episodes of VMware Cloud on AWS Unplugged Podcast
- Check out Cloud Customer Success Community, engage with your peers and get your questions answered.
