HP-UX Containers (SRP) A.03.01 Administrator's Guide

13 Using Serviceguard with containers

Serviceguard allows you to create high availability clusters of HP 9000 or HP Integrity Servers. A

high availability computer system allows application services to continue in spite of a hardware or

software failure. Highly available systems protect users from software failures as well as from failure

of a system processing unit (SPU), disk, or local area network (LAN) component. In the event that one

component fails, the redundant component takes over. Serviceguard and other high availability

subsystems coordinate the transfer between components.

You can use Serviceguard to provide high availability to your HP-UX Containers deployment.

Serviceguard can manage a Servcieguard package executing within a container, or manage the

container itself as a Serviceguard package.

13.1 Choosing a model

HP offers two different models when using Serviceguard with HP-UX Containers: the classic model

and the container package model.

In the classic model, the container is in the started state and Serviceguard has not yet started

managing the application inside the container. This model is most compatible with the existing

Serviceguard packages.

In the container package model, the container itself is the Serviceguard package. This model takes

advantage of the capabilities of HP-UX Containers by simplifying the Serviceguard scripts and

allowing application startup and shutdown to be managed by HP-UX Containers. Serviceguard starts

and stops the container; and the container initialization and shutdown process starts and stops the

applications within the container. This model simplifies the Serviceguard packages and requires less

maintenance and administration of startup and shutdown activities. With this model, you can choose

either Serviceguard or HP-UX Containers to control the file system mounting and the network interface

management.

13.2 Creating a container to use with Serviceguard

If you want to create a container that will use Serviceguard, you must first determine how HP-UX

Containers and Serviceguard will interact together. The following steps will give you the information

that you need to configure a container appropriately:

1. Select the model

If you have existing Serviceguard control scripts that you want to leverage, HP recommends

that you use the classic model. For a new deployment of a Serviceguard package, HP

recommends that you use the container package model as it is easier to create.

2. Select which application will have the control

Determine whether HP-UX Containers or Serviceguard will control the mounting of file systems

and management of the network interface, as follows:

• If you selected the classic model in Step 1, HP recommends using Serviceguard to

control the mounting of file systems and management of the network interface. If you

selected the container package model in Step 1, HP recommends using HP-UX

Containers to control the file system mounting and management of the network

interface.