Implementing a Failover Resource

A failover resource group contains network addresses, such as the built-in resource types LogicalHostname and SharedAddress, and failover resources, such as the data service application resources for a failover data service. The network address resources, along with their dependent data service resources, move between cluster nodes when data services fail over or are switched over. The RGM provides a number of properties that support implementation of a failover resource.

In a global cluster, a failover resource group can fail over to a node on another Oracle Solaris host or on the same Oracle Solaris host. A failover resource group cannot fail over in this way in a zone cluster. However, if the host fails, the failing over of this resource group to a node on the same host does not provide high availability. Nonetheless, you might find this failing over of a resource group to a node on the same host useful in testing or prototyping.

Set the Boolean Failover resource type property to TRUE to restrict the resource from being configured in a resource group that can be online on more than one node at a time. The default for this property is FALSE, so you must declare it as TRUE in the RTR file for a failover resource.

The Scalable resource property determines if the resource uses the cluster shared address facility. For a failover resource, set Scalable to FALSE because a failover resource does not use shared addresses.

The RG_mode resource group property enables the cluster administrator to identify a resource group as failover or scalable. If RG_mode is FAILOVER, the RGM sets the Maximum_primaries property of the group to 1. The RGM also restricts the resource group to being mastered by a single node. The RGM does not allow a resource whose Failover property is TRUE to be created in a resource group whose RG_mode is SCALABLE.

The Implicit_network_dependencies resource group property specifies that the RGM should enforce implicit strong dependencies of nonnetwork address resources on all network address resources (LogicalHostname and SharedAddress) within the group. As a result, the Start methods of the nonnetwork address (data service) resources in the group are not called until the network addresses in the group are configured to go up. The Implicit_network_dependencies property defaults to TRUE.