3.6.0 Matrix Server 3.6.0 Administration Guide (5697-7081, December 2007)

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Advanced Monitor Topics

The topics described here provide technical details about Matrix Server

operations. This information is not required to use Matrix Server in

typical configurations; however, it may be useful if you want to design

custom scripts and monitors, to integrate Matrix Server with custom

applications, or to diagnose complex configuration problems.

The Effect of Monitors on Failover

Typically a virtual host has a primary network interface and one or more

backup interfaces. On the servers supplying the interfaces, the state of the

virtual host is either active or inactive.When Matrix Server needs to fail

over a virtual host, it looks for the healthiest backup server. To make this

determination, Matrix Server considers the state of any service or device

monitors associated with the virtual host.

Service Monitors

Service monitors are configured on a virtual host. The service to be

monitored is expected to be running simultaneously on the primary

server and on the backup servers associated with the virtual host. The

monitor uses a probe mechanism to determine whether the service is up.

The probe mechanism is in one of the following states on each server: Up,

Down, Unknown, Timeout.

A service monitor also has an activity status on each server. The status

can be one of the following: Starting, Active, Suspended, Stopping,

Inactive, Failure.