Full-Server Failover User’s Guide Twelfth Edition (March 2009) Part Number: T2558-96328
© Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. Hewlett-Packard Company makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Hewlett-Packard shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.
Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction .........................................................1-1 Full-Server Failover .......................................................................... 1-1 Resources ......................................................................................... 1-2 Conventions used in this guide ......................................................... 1-2 Chapter 2 Installation ...........................................................2-1 System requirements ......
Introduction Welcome to Storage Mirroring Full-Server Failover! This manual is for users who want to provide high availability for their entire server. This chapter includes a Full-Server Failover overview, a list of resources available to you while using Full-Server Failover, and a list of conventions used throughout this manual.
Resources You have many resources available to you when using Full-Server Failover. Operating System and application documentation—Make sure that you have complete documentation for your operating system and your applications. Storage Mirroring documentation—All Storage Mirroring products include documentation. Manuals are available on the product CD (in the \docs subdirectories of each set of program installation files) and in the installation directory you selected during the installation.
Installation Before installing Full-Server Failover, verify that your source and target meet the system requirements. Then proceed with Installing or upgrading Full-Server Failover on page 2-3. System requirements Each server that will be used as a Full-Server Failover source or target should meet the following system requirements. NOTE: These requirements are high-level requirements that each server must meet to run the Full-Server Failover program.
System Memory—There are different memory requirements depending on the operating system you are using. Be sure you have at least the minimum amount of memory for your environment. You may want to consider having at least the recommended amount of system memory.
Installing or upgrading Full-Server Failover Use these instructions to install Full-Server Failover or upgrade an existing Full-Server Failover installation. If you are using the same installation files as your existing installation, you can modify or repair the existing installation. 1. Close any open applications. 2. Start the installation program using the appropriate instructions, depending on your media source. CD—Load the CD into the local CD-ROM drive.
If you have entered an evaluation activation code, the expiration date will be displayed and you will be prompted that the source and target modules will not load after that date. Click Next to continue the installation. You must update the activation code to a valid one through the Management Console before the expiration date, otherwise, on the expiration date, functionality will be disabled. 10. Storage Mirroring uses system memory to store data in queues.
Uninstalling Full-Server Failover Use these instructions if you want to uninstall an existing Full-Server Failover installation. If you want to use the product installation files to uninstall, you have to use the same installation files as the currently installed version. If you do not have the same installation files as the currently installed version, you will need to use the Windows Add/Remove Programs feature to uninstall the software. 1. Close any open applications. 2.
Clients Full-Server Failover has its own client called the Full-Server Failover Manager. It allows you to create your source and target connection, monitor your high availability protection, manage your Full-Server Failover snapshots, and initiate failover.
Configuring Full-Server Failover Manager options You can configure options for the Full-Server Failover Manager client by selecting File, Options. Refresh Interval—By default, the main window of Full-Server Failover Manager will automatically update every five (5) seconds. If desired, you can modify the refresh rate. You can also refresh the main window manually by selecting File, Refresh.
Finding a Compatible Target In a high availability protection solution, the target you select must be suitable for becoming the source, in the event the source fails. Full-Server Failover will validate the target you select and identify any incompatibilities. Errors will disqualify the target as a suitable server. To find a compatible target, check the table below for each of the requirements.
Requirement Configuration Boot volume configuration The target boot volume cannot be a dynamic disk configuration. The boot volume is the disk volume that contains the Windows operating system and supporting files. By default, the operating system files are in the \Windows folder, and the supporting files are in the \Windows\System32 folder. The boot volume might be the same volume as the system volume, but that configuration is not required.
Establishing Server Protection Use the following instructions to establish protection for your source. 1. From the Windows desktop, select Start, Programs, Storage Mirroring, Full-Server Failover Manager. NOTE: The user performing any Full-Server Failover tasks must be a member of both the Double-Take Admin and local Administrators groups. 2. Enter your source and target servers. You can click Browse when selecting either server to locate it by drilling down through your network.
4. You must validate that your target is compatible with your source and can stand-in if the source fails. Click Validate configuration. You can also select Actions, Validate. The Validation tab at the bottom of Full-Server Failover Manager updates to display the validation check. Errors are designated by a white X inside a red circle. Warnings are designated by a black exclamation point (!) inside a yellow triangle. A successful validation is designated by a white checkmark inside a green circle.
Configuring optional settings If you want to configure optional protection settings, click Configure protection from the main Full-Server Failover Manager window, after you have selected your source and target. You can also select Actions, Configure Protection. There are multiple tabs for different types of protection settings. The Protection tab determines what on the source will be protected and how the target will handle the protection. The Failover tab controls how the failover process will be handled.
Missed intervals—By default, the target can miss five (5) responses from the source before assuming the source has failed. If desired, increase or decrease the number of responses that can be missed before the source is identified as failed. NOTE: Together, the Monitor interval and Missed intervals settings determine the total time before failover would be triggered. For example, five missed checks every five seconds would be 25 seconds to trigger failover.
Mirroring—Select the type of Storage Mirroring mirroring process you want to perform. A Full mirror will transmit all files from the source to the target. A Checksum mirror will transmit only the blocks of data that are different between the source and target. NOTE: The mirror will remain in an initializing state until the mirror calculation is complete. Estimate Replication Set size based on volume—If enabled, the replication set size is based on the volume size, which is a faster calculation.
Monitoring Failover After you have enabled protection, you can monitor the protection from Full-Server Failover Manager, and you can review the log file generated by Full-Server Failover Manager. Monitoring failover The Protection Status is displayed in the right center of Full-Server Failover Manager. You can tell the status of your protection from this field. Disabled—Protection for the source has not been started.
Initiating Failover In the event your source has failed, you can failover to your target allowing for immediately availability. Failover can be initiated through the Full-Server Failover Manager client. You also have the option of initiating failover by using a command line interface. Starting failover using Full-Server Failover Manager When a failover condition is met, you will want to start failover. Additionally, you can start it without a failover condition, as long as protection is enabled.
Revert to specified snapshot—Select this option, and then select a snapshot. The data on the target will be reverted to the selected snapshot. This option will not be available if there are no snapshots on the target or if the target does not support snapshots. To help you understand what snapshots are available, use the Type and Status columns. The Status indicates the state of the connection between the source and target at the time the snapshot was taken.
Starting failover from a command line You can configure connections and initiate failover without using the Full-Server Failover Manager user interface. The same executable that launches the user interface can be used from a command prompt with options. The command line execution opens the user interface, passes through specified parameters, and initiates specified processes.
Performing Failback After your target has failed over and becomes your source, you can stay with that configuration long term. However, in some instances, it may be necessary or desired to go back to using the original hardware after you have failed over. Use the following process to failback to your original (or other) hardware. 1. Because your new source is on the network, you must make sure your original source is unique on the network to avoid name and IP address conflicts.
Managing Snapshots By default, snapshots are enabled in Full-Server Failover. Also by default, a snapshot is taken every 60 minutes. This may lead to numerous snapshots on the target that you may want to manage. You can do that by selecting Actions, Snapshot Manager. (This option is only available when a source and target are selected and protection is enabled.) Enable periodic snapshots—By default, periodic snapshots are enabled.
Delete Snapshot—If you no longer want to keep a snapshot, you can delete it by highlighting the snapshot in the Existing Snapshots list and clicking Delete Snapshot. To help you understand the snapshots, use the Type and Status columns. The Status indicates the state of the connection between the source and target at the time the snapshot was taken. the Type information is displayed in the following table. Type Description Scheduled This snapshot was taken as part of a periodic snapshot.
Using Firewalls If your source and target are on opposite sides of a NAT or firewall, you will need to configure your hardware to accommodate Full-Server Failover communications. You must have the hardware already in place and know how to configure the hardware ports. If you do not, see the reference manual for your hardware. In a NAT or firewall environment, you must have a static mapping where a single, internal IP address is always mapped in a one-to-one correlation to a single, external IP address.
