Full-Server Failover Evaluation Guide Twelfth Edition (March 2009) Part Number: T2558-96331
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Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction .........................................................1-1 Evaluation Guide overview ............................................................... 1-2 Chapter 2 Resources .............................................................2-1 Chapter 3 Storage Mirroring Setup .......................................3-1 System requirements ........................................................................ 3-1 Installing Full-Server Failover ........................
Introduction Welcome to HP StorageWorks Storage Mirroring Full-Server Failover! The Storage Mirroring Full-Server Failover feature provides high availability for an entire server, including the system state, which is the server’s configured operating system and applications. Using Full-Server Failover Manager, you identify your source, which is the server you want to protect, and your target, which is the server that will stand-in for the source in the event the source fails.
Evaluation Guide overview In this guide, you will find the following sections. 1. Introduction—A brief overview of Full-Server Failover 2. Resources—Resources available during your evaluation 3. Installation—System requirements and basic instructions for installing Full-Server Failover 4. Evaluation—Step-by-step instructions for evaluating Full-Server Failover 5.
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.
Storage Mirroring Setup Your setup consists of two tasks: determining that your source and meet the system requirements of this evaluation and performing the installation. NOTE: When evaluating you should install and evaluate it in a test environment. Do not use your actual production servers because you will be forcing a failure during the evaluation. System requirements Each server that will be used as a Full-Server Failover source or target should meet the following system requirements.
3. When the installation program begins, the Storage Mirroring Setup Launcher appears. This interface allows you to install and view documentation for various applications from HP. The listed applications will depend on which products are included on the CD or in the web download. To install Full-Server Failover, select Storage Mirroring for Windows from the list of products and then select Install Storage Mirroring for Windows. 4.
Evaluating Full-Server Failover Full-Server Failover configuration consists of various tasks for establishing server protection, simualating a failure, and performing failover. The evaluation includes the following tasks. 1. Finding a compatible target on page 4-1 2. Establishing server protection on page 4-3 3. Monitoring failover on page 4-5 4. Causing and verifying replication on page 4-6 5. Simulating a failure on page 4-7 6.
Requirement Configuration Network adapters You must map at least one NIC from the source to one NIC on the target. If the source has more NICs than the target, some of the source NICs will not be mapped to the target. Therefore, the IP addresses associated with those NICs will not be available after failover, unless you configure the advanced options. If there are more NICs on the target than the source, the additional NICs will still be available after failover.
Requirement Capacity and free Space Configuration The target must have enough space to store the data from the source. This amount of disk space will depend on the applications and data files you are protecting. The more data you are protecting, the more disk space you will need. You must also have enough space on the target to process and apply the system state data. Full-Server Failover performs several validation checks to determine if adequate disk space is available.
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.
Monitoring failover After you have enabled protection, you can monitor the protection from Full-Server Failover Manager. 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. The target must be validated as compatible before you can enable protection. Initializing—Full-Server Failover is initializing protection.
Causing and verifying replication In order to test replication, you need to change the data on your source. This includes modifying existing files, creating new files, deleting files, and changing permissions and attributes. 1. On the source, browse through the directories and files contained on your source. 2. Select four files from your source and record the file information specified in the following table.
Simulating a failure To fully evaluate the process, you need to simulate a failure. To do this, power off the source server. Starting failover 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. For example, you may want to force failover when upgrading to a better source server.
Click OK to initiate failover. Monitor the failover percentage as shown in the Protection Status. At the end of failover, the target will be rebooted automatically. After the reboot, the target will no longer exist, since it will become the source. NOTE: Because the Windows product activation is dependent on hardware, you may need to reactivate your Windows registration after failover. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the reactivation.
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