Nutanix Witness VM and Purpose ?

Do you know about Nutanix special VM that is also known as Nutanix Witness VM. This is common question – what is Nutanix Witness VM and what is the purpose / benefits to using Nutanix Witness VM in Nutanix cluster and why did Nutanix develop Witness. I know this could be your question as well. Don’t worry, Today we will discuss about Nutanix Witness VM.

Lets explore the Nutanix Witness VM and it’s special purposes to using it in production environment.

Nutanix Witness VM ?

The Nutanix Witness VM is Linux based operating system using for specific purpose in Nutanix cluster. Nutanix Witness VM is a special VMs that is used for leader election in Metro availability and to form the 2 node (NX-1175S-G5 / G6 ) cluster deployments. Witness VM should reside in a separate failure domain of the two clusters which require leader election.

Nutanix Witness VM installation package is available to deploy on Nutanix native AHV hypervisor, VMware ESXi hypervisor and VMware Workstation only.

Nutanix Witness VM Purpose ?

Nutanix Witness VM is useful to create 2 node cluster and to configure Metro availability feature. Along with it Nutanix Witness provides site failure-over automation functionality between two Nutanix clusters sites.

Nutanix Witness VM is deployed in following two cases:

Nutanix 2 Node Cluster

Nutanix 2 Node cluster is the special cluster, which gives you flexibility to form 2 nodes cluster with the help of Nutanix Witness VM. To using this 2 nodes cluster is having special case – like if you have DC Nutanix clusters and you want to replicate highly critical VMs from DC or PR to disaster recovery ( DR ) site with low cost Nutanix solution, then you can purchase Nutanix Two-Node special series NX-1175S-G5 / G6 that is made for 2 nodes cluster only.

Nutanix 2 node clusters: Witness VM is required for Leader election- A Nutanix Two-Node (NX-1175S-G5 / G6) cluster relies on communication with a Witness VM in order to allow the cluster to transition between modes. A logical timestamp is kept updated between cluster and witness to track of the current cluster mode and state.

Read also: Nutanix Two-nodes cluster Vulnerability

Nutanix Metro Availability

Nutanix Metro availability is the great feature for real time syncing data from DC or PR to DC site. but Metro Availability feature currently supported by VMware ESXi hypervisor and Hyper-V hypervisor only – may be supporting in Nutanix AHV hypervisor also in future. Nutanix team is working on it to make it possible.

If you are using VMWare ESXi hypervisor on Nutanix platform, then you can leverage Nutanix Metro availability feature to configure real-time container(s) sync via metro availability to DR site with the help of Nutanix Witness VM.

Nutanix Metro availability configuration: Witness VM is used to automate the failover for site failures or inter-site network failures – Nutanix Metro Availability is a continuous availability solution which enables synchronous replication and stretched clustering capabilities for Nutanix environments.

Read also: Nutanix Metro Availability Troubleshooting

Download Nutanix Witness VM

You can download the Nutanix Witness VM setup bundle for Nutanix AHV hypervisor, VMware ESXi hypervisor and VMware workstation.

To download the Nutanix Witenss VM initial deployment package for AHV and VMware ESXi – link give below:

Download here – Download Nutanix Witness VM

Note: Nutanix Witness VM setup bundle is available in QCOW and OVA format only.

Useful Links:

• Add Storage Node as Never Schedule-able Node in Nutanix Cluster
• Evacuate \ Remove Nutanix AHV ESXI Node from Cluster
• Nutanix RF 2 / 3: Redundancy Factor Vs Replication Factor Explained

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