Automation of two HP Systems Insight Manager 5.3 servers to provide Failover Event Handling 532451-001, January 2009

Introduction

In very large environments, one HP

Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) may not provide all the

coverage needed for all the devices in disaster recovery (DR). It might be desirable to have two HP

SIM servers covering for each other. In this scenario, we will create a set of Event Handlers which

allow two HP SIM (Central Management Server or CMS) servers to specifically watch each other and

take over coverage for the other’s Event Notification in the event of failure of one CMS.

The document describes how to create an Event Handler using the CMS

Command Line tool mxtask,

one of many CLI tools that come with HP Systems Insight Manager and are documented in the

Information Library at:

http://h18013.www1.hp.co

m/products/servers/management/hpsim/infolibrary.html

The goal is to have two HP SIM servers that manage Event Notification for local devices, say, City A

and City B. In normal operation, CMS A manages only City A servers and CMS B manages only City

B ser

vers. In some situation, the HP SIM server in City A fails, it is desirable to have City B

automatically detect this and run a task that would enable it to handle alerts on City A server in

addition to its own population. The basic configuration is that ea

ch CMS has a full population of all

devices being monitored, both from City A and B. This document describes a method to achieve that

failover.

The steps are:

Create two Event Collections using the customize lists option, one for City A events, the other f

City B events.

Create an Event Handlers on Server A and B that watch each other and run a custom task that

enables a new Event Handler for the other cities devices when the CMS in question dies.

Create an Event Handlers on Server A and B that watch each

other and run a custom task that

removes the event handler for the other cities devices when the CMS comes back online.

CMS A processes events on servers in A’s territory, CMS B processes events from servers in B’s

territory. A Watch Dog Event Handlers a

t each CMS watches for the other CMS to become

reachable or unreachable and creates or deletes event handler tasks.