Software Owner's manual

VC Server Profile Failover operations require the source and target servers to be configured to
boot-from-SAN, and can be initiated from the VCEM graphical user interface (GUI) as a one-button
operation or from a command line interface (CLI). When used with the automatic event handling
functionality in Systems Insight Manager, VC Server Profile Failover operations can be automatically
triggered based user-defined events.
When selecting a target server from a pool of defined spare systems, VC Server Profile Failover
automatically chooses the same server model as the source server.
System administrators can use VC Server Profile Failover to perform the rapid and cost effective
recovery of physical servers within the same VC Domain Group with minimal administrator
intervention.
IMPORTANT: When you perform a VC Server Profile Failover, no reference is provided to the
VC Domain from Systems Insight Manager. To access this reference, you must correlate the Systems
Insight Manager and Virtual Connect logs. For more information, see “Correlating VCEM operations
in Systems Insight Manager and Virtual Connect logs” (page 69).
VCEM detects the presence of logical server managers or upper level managers. When performing
this task, a prompt dialog message appears and explains the impact of performing that task from
outside the logical server manager or upper level manager. The following message appears:
IMPORTANT: VCEM has detected you may be using other products, such as
HP Insight Dynamics – VSE. Performing a failover of a Server Profile
to a designated spare blade may make it inconsistent with the upper
level manager. It is recommended to use the upper level manager to edit
this Server Profile. Type YES to proceed with this operation.
To proceed, you must type YES, and then click OK. VCEM does not proceed if you cut and paste
YES into the field.
Preconditions for VC Server Profile Failover
• Source and designated spare servers must be part of the same VC Domain Group.
• Designated spare servers are powered off.
• A spare server must be the same model as the source server.
Using spare bays
For information about designating spare bays, see “Designating spare bays” (page 99).
Initiating VC Server Profile Failover through the VCEM CLI
You can initiate VC Server Profile Failover through the VCEM CLI or GUI.
To perform VC Server Profile Failover tasks using the CLI, you must have Systems Insight Manager
administrative privileges.
To initiate VC Server Profile Failover using the CLI, enter C:\>VCEM -failover arguments,
then enter the appropriate argument as follows:
• For a bay, enter -bay enclosure_name:bay_number
• For a host, enter -host hostname
• For an IP address, enter -ip IP_address
The host and IP address are valid arguments only when Systems Insight Manager runs on the same
system as VCEM and full server discovery is in operation in Systems Insight Manager.
For more information about CLI usage in VCEM, see the “Failover Command Line Interface Usage
in VCEM” (page 116).
Performing a VC Server Profile Failover 93