Setting Up Automated Failover; Identifying Standbys For File Serving Nodes; Identifying Power Sources - HP StorageWorks x9300 Administrator's Manual

To determine the progress of a failover, view the Status tab on the GUI or execute the
ibrix_server -l command. While the management console is migrating segment ownership,
the operational status of the node is Up-InFailover or Down-InFailover, depending on whether the
node was powered up or down when failover was initiated. When failover is complete, the
operational status changes to Up-FailedOver or Down-FailedOver. For more information about
operational states, see
Both automated and manual failovers trigger an event that is reported on the GUI.

Setting up automated failover

The recommended minimum setup for automated failover protection is as follows:
1. Identify standbys for file serving nodes or specific segments. You must implement either
server-level or segment-level standby protection; you cannot implement both.
2. Identify power sources for file serving nodes. For APC power sources, associate file serving
nodes to power source slots.
3. Turn on automated failover.
If your cluster includes one or more user network interfaces carrying NFS/CIFS client traffic, HP
recommends that you identify standby network interfaces and set up network interface monitoring.
If your file serving nodes are connected to storage via HBAs, HP recommends that you set up HBA
monitoring.

Identifying standbys for file serving nodes

file serving nodes can be configured to provide standby service for one another in the following
configurations:
1 x 1. Set up standby pairs, where each server in a pair is the standby for the other.
1 x N. Assign the same standby to a certain number of primaries.
Contact HP Support for recommendations based on your environment.
The following restrictions apply to all types of standby configurations:
The management console must have access to both the primary server and its standby.
The same file system must be mounted on both the primary server and its standby.
A server identified as a standby must be able to see all segments that might fail over to it.
In a SAN environment, a primary server and its standby must use the same storage infrastructure
to access a segment's physical volumes (for example, a multiported RAID array).
To identify a standby for a file serving node, use the following command:
<installdirectory>/bin/ibrix_server -b -h HOSTNAME1,HOSTNAME2
For example, to identify node s2.hp.com as the standby for all segments on node s1.hp.com:
<installdirectory>/bin/ibrix_server -b -h s1.hp.com,s2.hp.com
For performance reasons, you might want to fail over specific segments to a standby instead of
failing over all segments on a node to a standby. Use this command to identify the segments:
<installdirectory>/bin/ibrix_fs -b -f FSNAME -s LVLIST -h HOSTNAME
For example, to identify node s1.hp.com as the standby for segments ilv_1, ilv_2, and ilv_3 in file
system ifs1:
<installdirectory>/bin/ibrix_fs -b -f ifs1 -s ilv_1,ilv_2,ilv_3 -h s1.hp.com

Identifying power sources

To implement automated failover, perform a forced manual failover, or remotely power a file
serving node up or down, you must set up programmable power sources for the nodes and their
standbys. Using programmable power sources prevents a "split-brain scenario" between a failing
26 Configuring failover
"Monitoring the status of file serving nodes" (page 47).