6.6

3 Re-designate the Secondary as the new active node. After this step, vCenter Server Heartbeat:
■
Reassigns the Public IP address to the Secondary in a LAN or updates DNS in a WAN.
■
Makes the newly active node visible on the network. The newly active node begins to intercept and
queue disk I/O operations for the newly passive node.
4 vCenter Server Heartbeat causes the newly passive node to begin accepting updates from the active
node.
5 vCenter Server Heartbeat starts the same protected applications on the new active node. The protected
applications become accessible to users. The failover is complete
Failover - Automatically Initiated by vCenter Server Heartbeat
Automatic failover (auto-failover) is triggered when system monitoring detects failure of a protected application
or when the passive node detects that the active node is no longer running properly and assumes the role of
the active node.
Resulting from a hardware, operating system, or network communications failure
Figure 1- 7. Automatic Failover (failed node)
During the auto-failover, the passive node performs the following steps:
1 Apply any intercepted updates currently in the passive node’s receive queue as identified by the log of
update records that are saved on the passive node but not yet applied to the replicated files.
The amount of data in the passive node’s receive queue affects the time required to complete the failover
process. If the passive node’s receive queue is long, the system must wait for all updates to the passive
node to complete before the rest of the process can take place. An update record can be applied only if
all earlier update records are applied, and the completion status for the update is in the passive node’s
receive queue. Update records that cannot be applied are discarded.
2 Switch mode of operation from passive to active.
This enables the public identity of the new active node. The shared Public IP address is assigned to the
new active node and the node becomes available to clients that were connected to the previously active
node before the auto-failover and clients are able to reconnect.
VMware, Inc. 15
Chapter 1 Introduction