Managing Serviceguard A.11.20, March 2013

C Integrating HA Applications with Serviceguard
The following is a summary of the steps you should follow to integrate an application into the
Serviceguard environment:
1. Read the rest of this book, including the chapters on cluster and package configuration, and
the Appendix “Designing Highly Available Cluster Applications.”
2. Define the cluster's behavior for normal operations:
• What should the cluster look like during normal operation?
• What is the standard configuration most people will use? (Is there any data available
about user requirements?)
• Can you separate out functions such as database or application server onto separate
machines, or does everything run on one machine?
3. Define the cluster's behavior for failover operations:
• Does everything fail over together to the adoptive node?
• Can separate applications fail over to the same node?
• Is there already a high availability mechanism within the application other than the features
provided by Serviceguard?
4. Identify problem areas
• What does the application do today to handle a system reboot or panic?
• Does the application use any system-specific information such as uname() or
gethostname(), SPU_ID, or MAC address which would prevent it from failing over
to another system?
5. Only applications specified by HP (or vendor approved) should be deployed in environments
using an HP Serviceguard Storage Management Suite bundle with Veritas Cluster File System
(CFS). If you are creating your own application for use in a CFS environment, some things to
consider include:
• Can the application be installed cluster-wide?
• Does the application work with a cluster-wide file name space?
• Will the application run correctly with the data (file system) available on all nodes in the
cluster? This includes being available on cluster nodes where the application is not currently
running.
• Does the application have a robust shutdown procedure to guarantee it will be down on
one node before it is started up on an other node?
NOTE: Check the Serviceguard/SGeRAC/SMS/Serviceguard Manager Plug-in Compatibility
and Feature Matrix and the latest Release Notes for your version of Serviceguard for up-to-date
information about support for CFS (http://www.hp.com/go/hpux-serviceguard-docs).
Checklist for Integrating HA Applications
This section contains a checklist for integrating HA applications in both single and multiple systems.
Defining Baseline Application Behavior on a Single System
Define a baseline behavior for the application on a standalone system:
360 Integrating HA Applications with Serviceguard