Installing and upgrading HP Insight Management 7.2 Update 2 on Windows Server 2012 Failover Clusters

Technical white paper | HP Insight Management 7.2

Suggested action: All SNMP devices that report their events to Systems Insight Manager should use this IP address and

name for the location of the Event Consolidator, also known as the SNMP Trap Destination. The host defined for the

WMI Mapper proxy should use this name and IP address (unless the WMI Mapper service runs on a system that is not a

cluster member and the WMI Mapper is not installed as part of Insight Management). For the examples discussed in this

white paper, the IP address is 15.199.242.164 and the name is CMS-C16-MATRIX.

3. Microsoft SQL Server virtual server and client access point

Function: To act as the virtual server IP address and name for the Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise database software

This software is used to extract, manipulate, or back up the Insight Management and Systems Insight Manager

databases.

Suggested action: The Systems Insight Manager Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) data source uses this virtual

server IP address and name as the location where the CMS Systems Insight Manager DNS points. In the examples

discussed in this white paper, the IP address is 15.199.242.163 and the name is CMS-C16-SQLSVR.

4. Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator virtual server and client access point

Function: To act as the virtual server IP address and name for the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator service

This service coordinates transactions that are distributed across a cluster.

Suggested action: Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator is installed with Microsoft SQL Server. In the examples

discussed in this white paper, the IP address is 15.199.242.162 and the name is CMS-C16-DTC.

Another two static IP addresses and names are needed for the primary and secondary systems.

5. Failover Cluster primary system IP address and name

Function: To serve as the TCP/IP address and name of the specific Microsoft Windows server host

Suggested action: Any software that references system-specific functions uses this address to connect to this system.

In the examples discussed in this white paper, the IP address is 15.199.242.157 and the name is CMS-C16-N1.

6. Failover Cluster secondary system IP address and name

Function: To serve as the TCP/IP address and name of the specific Microsoft Windows server host

Suggested action: Any software that references system-specific functions uses this address to connect to this system.

For the examples discussed in this white paper, the IP address is 15.199.242.159 and the name is CMS-C16-N2.

The “15.” network referenced previously is the public network used by clients to access the clustered services. Failover

Clustering also requires a private network to be implemented for internal cluster communication. The Failover Cluster

primary and secondary systems each have static IP addresses on the private network. In this white paper, the “10.” network

is used as the private network.

On each cluster node, the Failover Cluster creates and uses a special, private adaptor and IP address. The adaptor is called

the Microsoft Failover Cluster Virtual Adapter (FCVA). The IP address is a link-local address that is created by the adaptor

each time Windows restarts, using an IPv4 method called Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA), or auto-IP. The IPv4

prefix 169.254/16 is registered with the IANA for link-local usage. The FCVA is largely invisible, but it is listed by ipconfig /all.

Practically speaking, the FCVA IP address is best ignored. For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-

local_address, http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3927 and http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2009/02/13/what-is-a-

microsoft-failover-cluster-virtual-adapter-anyway.aspx.

Cluster configuration

Figure 1 demonstrates how to configure a cluster for best performance once all components are installed. In this active-

active configuration, load is distributed by running Insight Management and SQL Server on different systems.

The purpose of the primary system is to run the Systems Insight Manager services and other Insight Management

components.

The purpose of the secondary system is to run the Microsoft SQL Server clustered service.