Configuration Rules for a Mixed HP 9000 / Integrity Serviceguard Cluster, March 2007

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Table Of Contents

Configuration rules for a mixed HP 9000 / Integrity

Serviceguard cluster

Version 1.1

Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 3

Version history..................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 3

Purpose of document ........................................................................................................................ 4

Definition of terms ............................................................................................................................ 4

Audience ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Related documents ........................................................................................................................... 5

Problem statement and goals for mixed clusters ................................................................................... 6

Summary of the results ...................................................................................................................... 7

Summary of changes for existing clusters ............................................................................................ 7

Architectural rules and typical configurations .......................................................................................... 8

Cluster hardware architecture............................................................................................................ 8

Allowed servers in a mixed HP 9000 / Integrity HP Serviceguard cluster ............................................ 8

Allowed storage systems in a mixed HP 9000 / Integrity HP Serviceguard cluster................................ 8

Supported cluster software architecture............................................................................................... 9

Application software requirements ................................................................................................... 10

Application code........................................................................................................................ 10

Homogeneous architecture for primary and failover node ............................................................... 13

Heterogeneous architecture for both primary and failover nodes...................................................... 13

Specific ISV information...................................................................................................................... 13

Oracle 9i/10g database server....................................................................................................... 13

SAP with HP Serviceguard Extension for SAP..................................................................................... 14

Informix Dynamic Server ................................................................................................................. 14

Sybase ......................................................................................................................................... 14

HP Superdome Hybrid Servers ............................................................................................................ 15

Typical configuration examples ........................................................................................................... 15

Transition to Integrity with HP Superdome hybrid servers and mixed clusters ......................................... 16

Original 4 node HP 9000 nPar Supderdome cluster....................................................................... 16

Four-node mixed cluster with one HP 9000 Superdome and one hybrid Superdome........................... 17

Adding one Integrity server to a two-node HP 9000 cluster................................................................. 18

Original two-node HP 9000 cluster .............................................................................................. 18

Summary of content (30 pages)

PAGE 1
Configuration rules for a mixed HP 9000 / Integrity Serviceguard cluster Version 1.1 Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 3 Version history..................................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction....................................................................................................................
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New three-node mixed HP 9000 / Integrity cluster......................................................................... 18 Adding two HP Integrity servers to a two-node HP 9000 cluster........................................................... 19 Original two-node HP 9000 cluster .............................................................................................. 19 New four-node mixed HP 9000 / Integrity cluster ..........................................................................
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Executive summary With the advent of HP-UX 11i version 2 (HP-UX 11i v2), HP Integrity (Intel® Itanium®-based) systems are becoming prevalent in customer environments. Many customers are using HP Serviceguard to protect their mission-critical applications. For their HP 9000 servers, customers are running HP UX 11i version 1 (HP-UX 11i v1) and they are using HP-UX 11i version 2 (HP-UX 11i v2) for their HP Integrity servers.
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Starting with HP Serviceguard A.11.16, HP 9000 and Integrity servers that run HP-UX 11i v2UD2 can be configured to run in a single heterogeneous HP 9000/Integrity Serviceguard cluster. Purpose of document This technical whitepaper explains how to create a new cluster with both types of servers and how to upgrade an existing HP 9000 cluster or an existing HP Integrity cluster to include both server types.
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MCOE mission-critical operating environment; the HP-UX 11i MCOE is a high-availability operating environment for HP servers. nPar nPartition; the HP hard partition offering PA-RISC PA-RISC, Precision Architecture Reduced Instruction Set Computer; HP proprietary processor architecture, predecessor of the Intel® Itanium® architecture. SG A.11.16 HP Serviceguard release A.11.
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– http://docs.hp.com/en/B3935-90091/B3935-90091.pdf (Serviceguard A.11.17 release notes) – http://docs.hp.com/en/B7660-90018/B7660-90018.pdf (manual, 12th edition) • Current HP Metrocluster and Continentalclusters documentation – http://docs.hp.com/en/ha.html#Metrocluster (Metrocluster documentation) – http://docs.hp.com/en/ha.html#Continentalcluster (Continentalclusters documentation) • Aries – http://devresource.hp.com/drc/STK/docs/refs/ieee_aries.pdf – http://devresource.hp.com/drc/STK/docs/refs/Aries.
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• Allow the late majority to remain on subsequent PA releases while introducing HP Integrity systems to their operating environments at the same time Supporting mixed HP 9000 / Integrity clusters in HP-UX 11i v2 provides an ideal platform for customers to transition to HP Integrity servers at their own pace with optimal support from the HP-UX environment. With mixed clusters: • HP Integrity servers can be easily added to an existing HP 9000 cluster.
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Customers already using HP-UX 11i v2 to cluster HP Integrity systems will see the following change when transitioning to HP-UX 11i v2UD2: • The maximum cluster size increases from eight to 16 nodes. Customers familiar with homogeneous HP Serviceguard clusters on either HP-UX 11i v1 or HP-UX 11i v2 will see the following change when transitioning to HP-UX 11i v2 September 2004: • No support for vPARs existed at initial release of HP-UX 11i v2UD2. In 2005 a new vPar version (A.04.
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Note This matrix only lists the currently shipping server and storage systems. There are server and storage systems supported with mixed clusters that don’t ship anymore. For detailed information on supported configurations, please contact your local HP sales representative. Table 3 is an extract from http://www.hp.com/products1/serverconnectivity/support_matrices.html at the time this paper was edited. Please check the link above for a current version of the table. Table 3.
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Note The “Typical configuration examples” section of this whitepaper explains how to prepare an existing homogeneous cluster for mixed cluster support. – A non-MCOE based system with HP Serviceguard version A.11.16 or newer • Same or similar patch set for operating system, HP Serviceguard, and ISV applications • Same version of volume manager software (if used for shared storage) – Logical Volume Manager (LVM) – Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) starting with version 3.
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Table 4. HP 9000 systems with HP-UX 11i v2UD2 HP Integrity systems with HP-UX 11i v2UD2 PA 32-bit application Supported Supported with Aries PA 64-bit application Supported Supported with Aries Intel® Itanium® 32-bit application N/A Supported Intel® Itanium® 64-bit application N/A Supported Even though HP Integrity systems support all four types of applications at the same time, specific applications will either be all 32-bit or all 64-bit.
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setting up the cluster, it reduces the burden of keeping the executables in sync between the nodes because they are only present once on a shared disk. Note model(1) or getconf(1) commands can be added to the application startup script to distinguish between HP 9000 and Integrity nodes for choosing the appropriate set of executables. The following figure illustrates sample script to pick correct set of executables in a mixed cluster. Figure 1.
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Database applications, for instance, often store their data in an architecture-independent manner for which it does not matter on which architecture the data was generated. It will be usable by systems of both architectures, PA-RISC and Intel® Itanium®. Note If not explicitly allowed and supported by the application vendor, the application must be of the same type (32-bit or 64-bit) on both architectures.
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• Oracle does not support running the PA-RISC database binaries under the Aries emulator on HP Integrity servers. • Only Oracle 9iR2 and 10gR2 or later will be supported, with the PA-RISC version running on HP 9000 servers and the Intel® Itanium® version running on Integrity systems. There will be no support for 10gR1. • Mixed clusters are not supported with Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) and HP Serviceguard Extension for RAC (SGeRAC).
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HP Superdome Hybrid Servers HP Superdome servers based on the HP sx1000, or the HP sx2000 chipset can support configurations with both PA-RISC nPartitions and Intel® Itanium® 2 nPartitions in the same server. This allows customers to transition from HP9000 to Integrity within a Superdome at the granularity of a single partition. This provides customers the flexibility to transition each application to Intel® Itanium® on their own schedule, reducing both risk and operational disruption.
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Note If Informix is used in a SAP environment with SGeSAP, it is still restricted to fail-over between homogeneous nodes in a mixed cluster. • SAP integrated with SGeSAP starting with version B.03.11 Please check with the application vendor if you are unsure about the status of your specific application. The examples in this section just give an overview of possible scenarios.
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Figure 2. Original four-node HP 9000 cluster Failover OraDB Node A PA-8800 OK Node C PA-8800 OK Node B PA-8800 NFS Node D PA-8800 App1 App2 The customer would like to first transition his NFS server to Integrity. In order to achieve this, he first moves the NFS server to cluster node A and under some circumstances App2 to cluster node C. Then he upgrades the firmware of Superdome 1 if needed and replaces the PA-8800 CPUs with the desired Intel® Itanium® 2 CPUs.
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For configuration with applications that do not allow fail-over between heterogeneous cluster nodes The examples below focus on how one can use mixed architecture clusters to their advantage even if all or some of the applications don’t support failover between heterogeneous cluster nodes in the mixed cluster. For the purpose of these examples, the applications labeled with “Database” are only allowed to fail over between homogeneous nodes in a mixed cluster.
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• Node C fails. – No failover occurs; node A takes over the application server load for all users. – Optionally, the application server instance from node C fails over to node A if supported and more preferred by the application. Figure 5.
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Figure 6. Original two-node HP 9000 cluster Node A Node B Failover PA App Server OK PA Database Server New four-node mixed HP 9000 / Integrity cluster After the two new Integrity servers are added to the cluster, the database and application server packages are reconfigured. The database server is completely transitioned to the new Integrity servers. The original primary database server (node B) gets redeployed as an application server. The failover scenarios are: • Node A fails.
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Figure 7. New four-node mixed HP 9000 / Integrity cluster Node B Node A Failover OK PA PA App Server * App Server * Node C Node D Failover IPF OK Database Server 1 NOT OK Node B as a failover database server IPF Database Server 2 Adding one critical application and two new Integrity nodes to existing four-node HP 9000 cluster This example shows a homogeneous four-node HP 9000 cluster with one mission-critical application on each node.
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Figure 8. Existing four-node HP 9000 cluster Node PA HR Node PA ERP Node PA NFS Node PA Financials (FI) After being in production for some time, the customer faces the following challenges: • The current HP 9000 cluster is missing its service level agreements (SLA) during failover times because all four nodes became fully utilized over time by their primary applications.
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Figure 9. New six-node mixed HP 9000 / Integrity cluster Node PA HR Node PA ERP Node Node PA Standby IPF NFS Node Node PA Financials (FI) IPF CRM Mixed clusters as transition aid from HP 9000 to Integrity in a multi-tier SAP environment This example shows how a customer who initially uses a homogeneous cluster of four HP 9000 nodes and takes advantage of the mixed cluster support to transition to an Integrity cluster in several steps.
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Before one of the three critical applications fails over to node D, the non-critical application server on node D will be shut down or optionally, its resource entitlements will be reduced using WLM. Figure 10.
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The database and central instance of the BW system are split in two packages. The BW database stays on node C, while the BW central instance is configured to run on the newly added Integrity node (node E). Because the BW central instance does not run any database, it can fail over between HP 9000 and Integrity nodes. Node D remains as the common failover node for all applications that normally run on node A, B, C, or E.
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The customer would also like to consolidate the database and the central instance for each of the systems into a single package—one for the ERP system and one for the BW system—to simplify operation and reduce the number of systems running mission-critical applications that pose a single point of failure (SPOF) in the overall configuration.
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How to implement a mixed HP 9000 / Integrity HP Serviceguard cluster There are several paths to get to a supported mixed HP 9000 / Integrity HP Serviceguard cluster. The starting point is always a currently supported configuration. The transition process details depend on the current customer configuration. Two major steps are involved: • All systems must run the same version of HP-UX, as a minimum 11i v2UD2. – Upgrade the systems to the desired version of HP-UX before adding them to the cluster.
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v2UD2 as described previously. The process of converting an Integrity cluster to a mixed HP 9000 / Integrity cluster is similar to converting a HP 9000 cluster to a mixed HP 9000 / Integrity cluster, which involves the following steps: • Upgrade the server to at least HP-UX 11i v2UD2 and HP Serviceguard A.11.16 through the rolling upgrade process as described in Appendix E of the HP Serviceguard user manual. – Shut down the application packages running on a specific node and restart them on another node.
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Installing a new mixed cluster When no cluster exists, there is little to consider because nodes of both architectures form the cluster. One point to address is the requirements caused by two sets of application binaries. You must have HP-UX 11i v2UD2 and HP Serviceguard A.11.16 or newer installed on all systems, which can be achieved by installing the MCOE on all systems before creating the cluster or by installing the base operating system, HP Serviceguard, and desired ISV individually.
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For more information http://www.hp.com/go/ha © 2004,2007 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.