asked on

VMWare: USB faxing with failover cluster.

Dear Experts

Our environment has 2 ESXi hosts setup with vSphere 5.5 with vSphere HA configured.

Now, one of our VMs (2008r2) need a USB fax modem connected to it.
I've found a few articles on EE that describe USB passthrough connectivity to hosts but doesn't explain how to make it work in a failover cluster. Is this possible without using a network attached USB hub like AnywhereUSB? Or more importantly, is it actually possible to do this with AnywhereUSB or in some other way to support host failover?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

chinguetti

ASKER

Dear Andrew

Thank you for your input!
I read some of your articles before posting my questions and they were extremely helpful.
The reason I posted this question is because the server needs to be online (almost) 24/7 365 days a week.
In case of host failure / maintenance etc having the host offline would have quite an impact on our business.

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

It's very rare these days, to have a host go offline or fail, hardware has become very good.

chinguetti

ASKER

Hi Andrew

Thank you once again for letting me pick your brain on this one.
Are there any recommended USB modems that work better than others?

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

USR Robotics have good USB fax modems.

But be aware that USB pass through was not designed for modems but security keys or dongles.