VMware and Symantec jointly released a technical white paper titled: Virtualizing Business Critical Applications with Confidence. The paper which is 10 pages provides an overview of the challenges faced when virtualizing business critical applications and how ApplicationHA, which is a joint solution from VMware and Symantec can help to solve these challenges.
ApplicationHA monitors the health of applications and virtual machines, and is powered by Veritas Cluster Server technology. It can restart both: applications by direct intervention, and VMs by coordinating with vCenter Server. Plus, the product can be fully operated from the vCenter Client and supports VMware HA and DRS.
"…VMware’s application awareness API provides a foundation upon which third-party vendors can build upon in order to provide application awareness within a virtualized environment. Symantec ApplicationHA utilizes this API to develop a robust solution which allows for increased levels of availability for critical applications, avoiding many of the issues encountered in implementing a traditional clustering solution in a virtualized environment.
VMware administrators will also appreciate the ability to utilize the VMware vSphere interface that they are familiar with to visualize and administer the solution.
Overall, this solution represents another leap forward in providing support for the most critical applications within a VMware virtualized environment…"