VMware vCenter Heartbeat Officially Flatlined

While the reasoning may not be fully known yet as to why it has happened, VMware has chosen to mark the vCenter Server Heartbeat product as EOA (End of Availability) as of June 2, 2014. It has been noted that this does not affect current users of the product, although new implementations will be challenged since the product no longer appears in their price list.

vCenter Heartbeat – Flappy Bird for HA vCenter Implementations

Much like the ever popular game Flappy Bird that suddenly was pulled from app stores around the world, the VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat binaries and licences may become a hot commodity. The challenge with this move by VMware is the lack of a replacement product.

So the real question comes as to why the plug has been pulled suddenly on the product without a clear future path laid out to know where we may evolve. Or perhaps it is there already and we just haven’t quite seen that it is right in front of us. Remember that vCenter Server Heartbeat is not the only way to create an availability solution for your vCenter environments. It just happened to be a very neatly packaged one.

A Temporary Step Backwards for vCenter High Availability

If you have the product in place today, you are covered to continue use until 2018 according to the support life cycle. In the mean time though, it may be a good time to put your bets on what the next vision of a HA vCenter may need to look like for your data centers.

More info can be seen here in the FAQ for the EoA announcement.