SmartIO blueprint and deployment guide for Solaris platform
SmartIO for Solaris was introduced in Storage Foundation HA 6.2. SmartIO enables data efficiency on your SSDs through I/O caching. Using SmartIO to improve efficiency, you can optimize the cost per Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS). SmartIO supports both read and write-back caching for the VxFS file systems that are mounted on VxVM volumes, in multiple caching modes and configurations. SmartIO also supports block-level read caching for applications running on VxVM volumes. The SmartIO Blueprint for Solaris give an overview of the benefits of using SmartIO technology, the underlying technology, and the essential configuration steps to configure it. In the SmartIO Deployment Guide for Solaris, multiple deployment scenarios of SmartIO and how to manage them are covered in detail. Let us know if you have any questions or feedback!
Symantec ApplicationHA 6.2: Monitoring applications with Intelligent Monitoring Framework
Symantec ApplicationHA 6.2: Monitoring applications with Intelligent Monitoring Framework Introduced in this release, the Intelligent Monitoring Framework (IMF) feature improves ApplicationHA efficiency with: Faster detection of application faults Ability to monitor a large number of application components, with minimal effect on performance IMF is automatically enabled, if you use the Symantec High Availability Wizard to configure an application for monitoring. The feature was introduced in ApplicationHA 6.1 for Windows. In ApplicationHA 6.2, it is extended to AIX, Linux, and Solaris. For details, see the following topics: How intelligent monitoring works:AIX,Linux (KVM), Linux (VMware), andSolaris. Enabling debug logs for IMF:AIX,Linux (KVM),Linux (VMware), andSolaris. Gathering IMF information for support analysis:AIX,Linux (KVM),Linux (VMware), andSolaris. This release introduces IMF support for the folloing ApplicationHA agents: Apache HTTP Server DB2 Database (not applicable to Oracle VM Server for SPARC environment) Oracle Database Generic (custom) applications The following topics describe how to use the Symantec High Availability wizard to configure each supported application for IMF-enabled monitoring: Configuring application monitoring for Apache:AIX,Linux (KVM),Linux (VMware), andSolaris. Configuring application monitoring for DB2:AIX,Linux (KVM),and(Linux (VMware). Configuring application monitoring for Oracle:AIX,Linux (KVM),(Linux (VMware), andSolaris. Configuring application monitoring for generic applications:AIX,Linux (KVM),(Linux (VMware), andSolaris. You can use Symantec Cluster Server (VCS) commands to perform more advanced IMF actions. ApplicationHA and VCS documentation is available on the SORTwebsite.SFHA Solutions 6.1: Using AdaptiveHA to select the largest system for failover
Symantec Cluster Server (VCS) service groups are virtual containers that manage groups of resources required to run a managed application. The FailOverPolicy service group attribute governs how VCS determines the target system for failover. For more information, see About service groups Service group attributes Cluster attributes About defining failover policies When you set FailOverPolicy to BiggestAvailable, AdaptiveHA enables VCS to dynamically select the cluster node with the most available resources to fail over an application. VCS monitors and forecasts the unused capacity of systems in terms of CPU, Memory, and Swap, to select the largest available system. If you set FailOverPolicy to BiggestAvailable for a service group, you must specify the load values in terms such as, 1 CPU, 1GB RAM, and 1GB SWAP, in the Load service group attribute.You only need to specify those resources that are used by the service group. For example, if the service group does not use the Swap resource, only specify the CPU and Memory resources in the Load attribute. Note: The Load FailOverPolicy isbeingdeprecated after this release. Symantec recommends that you change to theBiggestAvailableFailOverPolicy for enabling AdaptiveHA. For more information, see About AdaptiveHA Enabling AdaptiveHA for a service group If you upgrade VCS manually, ensure that you update the VCS configuration file (main.cf) to enable AdaptiveHA. When you upgrade from an older version of VCS using the installer, the main.cf file gets automatically upgraded. For more information, seeManually upgrading the VCS configuration file to the latest version VCS documentation for other platforms and releases can be found on theSORTwebsite.
SFHA Solutions 6.0.1: About GAB seeding and its role in VCS and other SFHA products
Group Membership and Atomic Broadcast (GAB) is a kernel component of Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) that provides globally-ordered messages that keep nodes synchronized. GAB maintains the cluster state information and the correct membership on the cluster. However, GAB needs another kernel component, Low Latency Transport (LLT), to send messages to the nodes and keep the cluster nodes connected. How GAB and LLT function together in a VCS cluster? VCS uses GAB and LLT to share data among nodes over private networks. LLT is the transport protocol responsible for fast kernel-to-kernel communications. GAB carries the state of the cluster and the cluster configuration to all the nodes on the cluster. These components provide the performance and reliability that VCS requires. In a cluster, nodes must share the groups, resources and the resource states. LLT and GAB help the nodes communicate. For information on LLT, GAB, and private networks, see: About LLT and GAB About network channels for heartbeating GAB seeding The GAB seeding function ensures that a new cluster starts with an accurate membership count of the number of nodes in the cluster. It prevents your cluster from a preexisting network partition upon initial start-up. A preexisting network partition refers to the failure in the communication channels that occurs while the nodes are down and VCS cannot respond. When the nodes start, GAB seeding reduces the vulnerability to network partitioning, regardless of the cause of the failure. GAB services are used by all Veritas Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA) products. For information about preexisting network partitions, and how seeding functions in VCS, see: About preexisting network partitions About VCS seeding Enabling automatic seeding of GAB If I/O fencing is configured in the enabled mode, you can edit the /etc/vxfenmode file to enable automatic seeding of GAB. If the cluster is stuck with a preexisting split-brain condition, I/O fencing allows automatic seeding of GAB. You can set the minimum number of nodes to form a cluster for GAB to seed by configuring the Control port seed and Quorum flag parameters in the /etc/gabtab file. Quorum is the number of nodes that need to join a cluster for GAB to complete seeding. For information on configuring the autoseed_gab_timeout parameter in the /etc/vxfenmode file, see: About I/O fencing configuration files For information on configuring the control port seed and the Quorum flag parameters in GAB, see: About GAB run-time or dynamic tunable parameters For information on split-brain conditions, see: About the Steward process: Split-brain in two-cluster global clusters How I/O fencing works in different event scenarios Example of a preexisting network partition (split-brain) Role of GAB seeding in cluster membership For information on how the nodes gain cluster membership, seeding a cluster, and manual seeding of a cluster, see: About cluster membership Initial joining of systems to cluster membership Seeding a new cluster Seeding a cluster using the GAB auto-seed parameter through I/O fencing Manual seeding of a cluster Troubleshooting issues that are related to GAB seeding and preexisting network partitions For information on the issues that you may encounter when GAB seeds a cluster and preexisting network partitions, see: Examining GAB seed membership Manual GAB membership seeding Waiting for cluster membership after VCS start-up Summary of best practices for cluster communications System panics to prevent potential data corruption Fencing startup reports preexisting split-brain Clearing preexisting split-brain condition Recovering from a preexisting network partition (split-brain) Example Scenario I – Recovering from a preexisting network partition Example Scenario II – Recovering from a preexisting network partition Example Scenario III – Recovering from a preexisting network partition gabconfig (1M) 6.0.1 manual pages: AIX Solaris For more information on seeding clusters to prevent preexisting network partitions, see: Veritas Cluster Server Administrator's Guide Veritas Cluster Server Installation Guide Veritas Cluster Server documentation for other releases and platforms can be found on the SORT website.
SFHA Solutions 6.0.1: Troubleshooting VxVM and VVR
This article discusses Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM) and Veritas Volume Replicator (VVR) troubleshooting issues and solutions. VxVM: Recognizing when the state of a device has changed (HP-UX only) When you change the state of a Business Continuance Volume (BCV) or Symantec remote data facility device (SRDF) from write-disabled to write-enabled, VxVM does not recognize the change. The devices are in an error state, and HP-UX indicates the device paths have failed. For detailed analysis of this issue, advice on a tunable setting, and a corrective procedure, see: TechNote193158 The Veritas Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions Troubleshooting Guide also includes these VxVM troubleshooting chapters: Recovering from hardware failure Recovering from instant snapshot failure Recovering from boot disk failure Managing commands and transactions Backing up and restoring disk group configurations Troubleshooting issues with importing disk groups Recovering from CDS errors Error messages VVR: Recovering from Primary SRL volume overflow (all platforms) A replication link (RLINK) is STALE when the Secondary data volumes do not contain the Primary's data and cannot be brought up-to-date using the Primary Storage Replicator Log (SRL). This issue can occur when the SRL overflows. Learn how to correct this issue and prevent future overflows see: Primary SRL volume overflow recovery The Troubleshooting Guide discusses these VVR troubleshooting topics: Recovery from RLINK connect problems Recovery from configuration errors Recovery on the primary or secondary Learning more In addition to VxVM and VVR, the Troubleshooting Guide includes detailed information on detecting and correcting issues with: Veritas File System Dynamic Multi-Pathing Veritas Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability Veritas Cluster Server
SFW HA 6.1: Support for SmartIO
SmartIO is a new feature introduced in Symantec Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions (SFW HA) 6.1 for Windows. SmartIO improves I/O performance of applications and Hyper-V virtual machines by using Solid State Devices (SSDs) as a caching location for read-only I/O caching. Traditional disks are often an I/O bottleneck for high transaction applications. To compensate for this, administrators usually either increase the in-RAM cache size or buy expensive storage. To address this issue, SmartIO uses an SSD-based cache to drive high performance applications. SSDs are available in many sizes and connectivity types. This adds a new layer of complexity and decentralization of the storage. SmartIO adds a central management layer between the physical SSDs and the applications that need to access them. SmartIO lets you use the SSDs to maximize application performance without requiring in-depth knowledge of the technologies. SmartIO supports volume-level read-only caching as SSDs are primarily beneficial in high-read environments. To use SmartIO, you create a cache area (storage space allocated on the SSDs for caching) using one or more non-shared SSDs and link volumes to the cache area to enable caching for the volumes. Using SmartIO, you can also disable caching and grow, shrink, or delete a cache area. In a clustered environment, you may create auto cache areas on all cluster nodes. After failover, the implicitly linked volumes use the auto cache area on the failover node. If the auto cache area is not present on the failover node, then caching is not performed on the failover node. If the data volume is disconnected, caching for that volume is stopped. Caching is restarted once the volume is reconnected and brought online. If the cache area is disconnected, the cache area is taken offline and stops caching of all the volumes linked with it. SmartIO has the following limitations: You cannot reserve a cache area for a particular volume. You can create a new cache area and link the volume with it. File pinning or block pinning is not supported. The cache is volatile and does not persist after the system is restarted. For more information on the SmartIO feature, see the following sections of the "SmartIO" chapter in the Symantec Storage Foundation Administrator's Guide: About SmartIO Administering SmartIO through GUI Administering SmartIO through CLI Symantec Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions for Windows (SFW HA) documentation for other releases and platforms can be found on the SORT website.SFW 6.1: Support for Cluster Volume Manager (CVM)
Cluster Volume Manager (CVM) is a new feature introduced in Symantec Storage Foundation for Windows (SFW) 6.1. CVM is a new way to manage storage in a clustered environment. With CVM, failover capabilities are available at the volume level. Volumes under CVM allow exclusive write access across multiple nodes of a cluster. In a Microsoft Failover Clustering environment, you can create clustered storage out of shared disks, which lets you share volume configurations and enable fast failover support at the volume level. Each node recognizes the same logical volume layout and, more importantly, the same state of all volume resources. Each node has the same logical view of the disk configuration as well as any changes to this view. Note: CVM (and related cluster-shared disk groups) is supported only in a Microsoft Hyper-V environment. It is not supported for a physical environment. CVM is based on a "Master and Slave" architecture pattern. One node of the cluster acts as a Master, while the rest of the nodes are Slaves. The Master node maintains the configuration information. The Master node uses Global Atomic Broadcast (GAB) and Low Latency Transport (LLT) to transport its configuration data. Each time a Master node fails, a new Master node is selected from the surviving nodes. With CVM, storage services on a per virtual machine (VM) basis for Hyper-V virtual machines protects VM data from single LUN/array failures, helping maintain availability of the critical VM data. CVM helps you achieve the following: Live migration of Hyper-V virtual machines, which is supported with the following: Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs) of virtual machine lying on one or more SFW volumes Coexistence with Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) Mapping of one cluster-shared volume to one virtual machine only Seamless migration between arrays Migration of volumes (hosting VHDs) from any array to another array Easy administration using the Storage Migration Wizard Moving of the selected virtual machines’ storage to new target LUNs Copying of only those NTFS blocks that contain user data using SmartMove Availability of all the volume management functionality The following are the main features supported in CVM: New cluster-shared disk group (CSDG) and cluster-shared volumes Disk group accessibility from multiple nodes in a cluster where volumes remain exclusively accessible from only one node in the cluster Failover at a volume level All the SFW storage management features, such as: SmartIO Thin provisioning and storage reclamation Symantec Dynamic Multi-Pathing for Windows (DMPW) Site-aware allocation using the site-aware read policy Storage migration Standard features for fault tolerance: mirroring across arrays, hot relocation, dirty region logging (DRL), and dynamic relayout Microsoft Failover Clustering integrated I/O fencing New Volume Manager Shared Volume resource for Microsoft failover cluster New GUI elements in VEA related to the new disk group and volume CVM does not support: Active/Passive (A/P) arrays Storage migration on volumes that are offline in the cluster Volume replication on CVM volumes using Symantec Storage Foundation Volume Replicator For information aboutconfiguring a CVM cluster, refer to the quick start guide at: www.symantec.com/docs/DOC8119 The Storage Foundation for Windows documentation for other releases and platforms can be found on the SORT website.
SFHA Solutions 6.0.1: Understanding single-node VCS clusters and the single-node mode
You can install Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) on a single system to configure a single-node VCS cluster. You can use VCS single-node clusters for basic application administration tasks as well as application high availability-related tasks. For application administration, you can use Veritas Operations Manager (VOM) as a single console to manage a wide range of applications running across a variety of operating systems in your datacenter. You can perform administrative actions such as gracefully starting and stopping applications. Additionally, these tasks do not require you to undergo any application-specific or operating system-specific training. For application high availability, you can configure application restart and system reboot as fault management remedies in single-node VCS clusters. Symantec ApplicationHA leverages VCS clustering capabilities in virtualization environments. With Symantec ApplicationHA, you can configure application restart, system reboot, and virtual system failovers, as fault management remedies. The single-node mode is a different concept from the single-node cluster. The term single-node mode or one-node mode refers to the “-onenode” option that you can specify in the ‘hastart’ VCS commands, to start VCS on a node, without any communication links to other VCS nodes. You can invoke a VCS node in single-node mode, irrespective of whether the node is part of a single-node cluster or a multi-node cluster. In the single-node mode, the VCS policy engine, also known as High Availability Daemon (HAD), does not communicate with the Global Atomic Broadcast (GAB) module. The node therefore cannot participate in application failover. You cannot form a multi-node cluster by adding a single-node cluster, that is in single-node mode, to another node. To create a multi-node cluster using single-node clusters, you must first ensure that you unconfigure the single-node mode, and configure the LLT/GAB modules. Common use cases of single-node clusters include: Enabling datacenter administrators to start and stop a large variety of configured applications from VOM management console without the need for specialized training in the applications or the operating systems on which the applications are loaded. Hosting the Coordination Point or CP Server of the VCS fencing (VxFEN) module on a single-node cluster Hosting an application on a single-node cluster at the disaster recovery site (remote site), to economize on hardware in a Global Cluster Option (GCO) setup. In this case you cannot configure local application failover, but you can fail over the application back to the protected site. Creating a single-node cluster as a first step to creating a multi-node cluster. Ensure that you do not configure VCS in single-node mode for such a cluster. For more information on installing a single-node VCS cluster and adding it to other clusters, see: Creating a single-node cluster using the installer program Creating a single-node cluster manually Adding a node to a single-node cluster Setting up a node to join the single-node cluster Adding nodes using the VCS installer Manually adding a node to a cluster For more information on configuring VCS in single-node mode, see: Configuring VCS in single-node mode VCS documentation for other releases and platforms, as well as Symantec ApplicationHA can be found on theSORT websiteSFHA Solutions 6.0.1: About managing Virtual Business Services using VOM and the VBS command line interface
Virtual Business Services (VBS) is a feature that represents a multi-tier application as a single consolidated entity in Veritas Operations Manager (VOM). It builds on the high availability and disaster recovery features provided by Symantec products, such as, Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) and Symantec ApplicationHA. VBS enables administrators to improve operational efficiency of managing a heterogeneous multi-tier application. You can control VBS from the VOM graphical user interface and the VBS command line interface (CLI). When you install SFHA, the VBS installation packages, VRTSvbs and VRTSsfmh, are automatically installed on the nodes. From the VOM interface, you can define a VBS that consists of service groups from multiple clusters. You can also use the VBS CLI to performcommand line operations on that VBS. The clustering solutions that are offered today can only manage applications running on the same operating system. So, deploying the clustering solutions for a multi-tier, cross-platform setup can be difficult to manage. VBS can work across a heterogeneous environment to enable IT organizations to ensure that the applications across tiers can be made highly available. A typical multi-tier environment comprises of a database on a UNIX server, applications running in a Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) on a Linux server, and a Web server on a VMware virtual machine. VBS works across the heterogeneous environment to communicate between local operating systems to see the end-to-end state of multi-tier applications and to control start and stop ordering of the applications. With VBS there are relationships between tiers that you can customize to fit your environment. You can set up policies for the events that result in a failure or for the specific events that happen on tiers. For example, you can set up a policy that restarts the application service groups when the database service group fails over to another node. For more information about VBS features, components, and workflow, see: Features of Virtual Business Services Sample Virtual Business Service configuration Virtualization support in Virtual Business Services About the Veritas Operations Manager policy checks for Virtual Business Services About the Virtual Business Services components Virtual Business Services workflow Support matrix for VBS Prerequisites for using VBS Availability Add-on You can configure and manage a VBS created in VOM by using the VOM VBS Availability Add-on utility. You can also control a VBS from the VBS CLI, but you cannot create a VBS from the VBS CLI. The VBS Availability Add-on utility enables you to: Start or stop service groups associated to a VBS. Establish service group relationships that decide the order in which service groups are brought online or taken offline. Decide the reaction of application components in each tier when an event fault occurs on a tier. Recover a VBS from a remote site when a disaster occurs. For more information about installing the VBS add-on, packages, and configuring a VBS using VOM, see: Installing Veritas Operations Manager Virtual Business Services Availability Add-on Installing the VRTSvbs package using Veritas Operations Manager Configuring a Virtual Business Service For more information on managing VBS using VOM and the VBS command-line, see: Operations using Veritas Operations Manager and command line Starting and stopping Virtual Business Services Viewing the overview of a Virtual Business Service Viewing the Virtual Business Service status from the command line Enabling fault management for a Virtual Business Service Disabling fault management for a Virtual Business Service Fault management overview For more information on VBS commands, troubleshooting issues, and recovery operations, see: Virtual Business Services commands Troubleshooting Virtual Business Services Virtual Business Services log files For more information on managing VBS using VOM and the VBS command line, see: Virtual Business Service-Availability User's Guide Virtual Business Services documentation for other SFHA releases can be found on the SORT website.