Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide

Chapter 5 Administering Cluster Partnerships

This chapter provides the procedures for administering partnerships between two Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software-enabled clusters.

This chapter discusses the following topics:

Creating and Modifying a Partnership

A partnership establishes heartbeat monitoring between two clusters that are running Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software. Clusters in a partnership exchange heartbeats to monitor each other's presence.

You create a partnership with the geops(1m) command. After you have created a partnership, you can use this command to modify the properties of this partnership.

The names of the application resource groups that are managed by the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software must be the same on both partner clusters. You can configure the names of these resource groups manually or by using the scsnapshot command.

The scsnapshot command replicates configuration data on a cluster that does not have configured resource groups, resource types, and resources. The scsnapshot command retrieves the configuration data from the cluster on which it is launched and generates a script called scriptfile. Edit the script to adapt it to the specific features of the cluster where you want to replicate the configuration data. For example, if you change the IP address and host names in the script, you can launch the script from any node in the cluster where you want to replicate the configuration data. For more information about using this command, see the scsnapshot(1M) man page.

You can configure a partnership between only two clusters, and only one partnership can be defined between a given pair of clusters. A single cluster can participate in multiple partnerships.

How to Create a Partnership

Before You Begin

Before you can create a partnership between two clusters, ensure that the following conditions are met:

The cluster on which you want to create the partnership is up and running.
The geoadm start command must have already been run on the this cluster and the partner cluster. For more information about using the geoadm start command, see Enabling the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Software.
The cluster name of the partner cluster is known.
The host information of the partner cluster must defined in the local host file. The local cluster needs to know how to reach the partner cluster.
Security has been configured on the two clusters by installing the appropriate certificates.

See Configuring Secure Cluster Communication Using Security Certificates for more information.

Note –

When you create or join multiple partnerships, do not use port numbers that are being used by other partnerships. All tcp_udp requests go through the RPC server and the tcp_udp_resp is created on the remote cluster with the port number defined for the local cluster. Use an unused port number and ensure that the port number is not registered with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software uses the port in the CCR table rather than reading from the XML file, so when you change the port number, you must reset the configuration by deleting the partnership and manually update the XML information.

Steps

Log in to a cluster node.

You must be assigned the Geo Management RBAC rights profile to complete this procedure. For more information about RBAC, see Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Software and RBAC.

If the default port is being used by another application or if you are creating multiple partnerships on a cluster, change the port number as follows:
1. If a partnership exists, leave the partnership.
  # geops leave-partnership paris-newyork-ps
2. On all the nodes of the cluster, change the value of the tcp_udp.port in the /etc/opt/SUNWcacao/modules/com.sun.cluster.agent.geocontrol.xml file to the port you want the partnership to use.
  
  Only one heartbeat can use the default port. If a partnership's heartbeat is using the default port, the other partnership's heartbeat must be created with a specific port. The port you specify in the file must be a port that is not used by any application other than the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software.
  
  If the cluster participates in more than one partnership, ensure that the port number is different from the other partners.
3. Restart the common agent container on all the nodes of the cluster.
  # /opt/SUNWcacao/bin/cacaoadm restart

Create the partnership.
# geops create -c remote-partner-cluster-name [-h heartbeat-name] \ [-p property-setting [-p...]] partnership-name
-c remote-cluster-name

Specifies the name of the remote cluster that will participate in the partnership

This name matches the logical hostname used by the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition infrastructure on the remote cluster.

-h heartbeat-name

Specifies a custom heartbeat to be used in the partnership to monitor the partner cluster's availability

If you omit this option, the default Sun Cluster Geographic Edition heartbeat is used.

Custom heartbeats are provided for special circumstances and require careful configuration. Consult your Sun specialist for assistance if your system requires the use of custom heartbeats. For more information about configuring custom heartbeats, see Chapter 12, Administering Heartbeats.

The custom heartbeat that is specified by this option must already be configured before running the geops command.

Note –
The presence of a custom heartbeat prevents the default heartbeat from being used during partnership creation. If you want to use the default heartbeat for your partnership, you must delete the custom heartbeat before running the geops create command.

-p property-setting

Sets the value of partnership properties with a string of property=value pair statements

Specify a description of the partnership with the Description property.

You can configure heartbeat-loss notification with the Notification_emailaddrs and Notification_actioncmd properties. For more information about configuring heartbeat-loss notification, see Configuring Loss of Heartbeat Notification.

For more information about the properties you can set, see Appendix A, Standard Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Properties.

partnership-name

Specifies the name of the partnership

For information about the names and values that are supported by Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software, see Appendix B, Legal Names and Values of Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Entities.

For more information about the geops command, refer to the geops(1M) man page.

Verify that the partnership was created and the status of the partnership.
# geoadm status

Example 5–1 Creating a Partnership

The following example illustrates the creation of the partnership, paris-newyork-ps, on cluster-paris:

# geops create -c cluster-newyork -p Description=Transatlantic \
-p Notification_emailaddrs=sysadmin@companyX.com paris-newyork-ps 
# geoadm status

How to Modify Partnership Properties

Steps

Log in to one of the cluster nodes.

You must be assigned the Geo Management RBAC rights profile to complete this procedure. For more information about RBAC, see Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Software and RBAC.

Modify partnership properties.
# geops set-prop -p property-setting [-p...] partnership-name
-p property-setting

Sets the value of partnership properties with a string of property=value pair statements

Specify a description of the partnership with the Description property.

You can configure heartbeat-loss notification with the Notification_emailaddrs and Notification_actioncmd properties. For more information about configuring heartbeat-loss notification, see Configuring Loss of Heartbeat Notification.

For more information about the properties you can set, see Appendix A, Standard Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Properties.

partnership-name

Specifies the name of the partnership

For information about the names and values that are supported by Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software, see Appendix B, Legal Names and Values of Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Entities.

For more information about the geops command, refer to the geops(1M) man page.

Verify that your modification was made correctly.
# geops list

Example 5–2 Modifying the Properties of a Partnership

The following example illustrates how to modify the notification email address for cluster-paris:

# geops set-prop -p Notification_emailaddrs=operations@companyX.com \
paris-newyork-ps
# geops list

Joining an Existing Partnership

When you define and configure a partnership, the partnership specifies a second cluster to be a member of that partnership. Then, you must configure this second cluster to join the partnership.

How to Join a Partnership

Before You Begin

Before you can configure a cluster to join a partnership, ensure that the following conditions are met:

The local cluster is enabled to run the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software.
The partnership you want the cluster to join is defined and configured on another cluster (cluster-paris) and the local cluster (cluster-newyork) is specified as a member of this partnership.
Security has been configured on the clusters by installing the appropriate certificates.

See Configuring Secure Cluster Communication Using Security Certificates for more information.

Note –

Steps

Log in to one of the nodes of the cluster that is to join the partnership.

You must be assigned the Geo Management RBAC rights profile to complete this procedure. For more information about RBAC, see Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Software and RBAC.

Confirm that the cluster to be joined, cluster-paris, can be reached at its logical hostname.
# ping lh-paris-1
For information about the logical hostname of the cluster, see How to Enable Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Software.

Join an existing partnership.
# geops join-partnership [-h heartbeat-name] remote-cluster-name partnership-name
-h heartbeat-name

Specifies an identifier to a custom heartbeat plug-in on a partner cluster that the local cluster can use to monitor the partner cluster's availability

Custom heartbeats are provided for special circumstances and require careful configuration. Consult your Sun specialist for assistance if your system requires the use of custom heartbeats. For more information about configuring custom heartbeats, see Chapter 12, Administering Heartbeats.

If you omit this option, the default Sun Cluster Geographic Edition heartbeat is used.

remote-cluster-name

Specifies the name of a cluster that is currently a member of the partnership being joined, from which the partnership configuration information will be retrieved

partnership-name

Specifies the name of the partnership

For information about the names and values that are supported by Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software, see Appendix B, Legal Names and Values of Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Entities.

For more information about the geops command, refer to the geops(1M) man page.

Verify that the cluster was added to the partnership and that the partnership properties were defined correctly.
# geops list # geoadm status

Example 5–3 Joining a Partnership

The following example illustrates how cluster-newyork joins the partnership that was created on cluster-paris in Example 5–1.

# geops join-partnership cluster-paris paris-newyork-ps
# geops list
# geoadm status

Leaving or Deleting a Partnership

You can also use the geops command to remove a cluster from a partnership and release all of the partnership's associated resources.

Because this command destroys the local partnership configuration information, when the last member leaves a partnership, the partnership no longer exists.

How to Leave a Partnership

Before You Begin

Before you leave a partnership, ensure that the following conditions are met:

The local cluster is a member of the partnership you want to leave.
This partnership does not contain any protection groups.

Steps

Log in to a cluster node.

You must be assigned the Geo Management RBAC rights profile to complete this procedure. For more information about RBAC, see Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Software and RBAC.

Verify that the partnership does not have any protection groups.
# geopg list
If you find that the partnership contains protection groups, you can delete them with the geopg delete command. For information about deleting Sun StorEdge Availability Suite 3.2.1 protection groups, see How to Delete a Sun StorEdge Availability Suite 3.2.1 Protection Group. For information about deleting a Hitachi TrueCopy protection group, see How to Delete a Hitachi TrueCopy Protection Group.

Remove the partnership on one node of the cluster that is a member of the partnership.
# geops leave-partnership partnership-name
partnership-name

Specifies the name of the partnership

Note –
The geops leave-partnership command deletes the heartbeats configured for the partnership, including custom heartbeats.

For more information, refer to the geops(1M) man page.

Example 5–4 Leaving a Partnership

The following example illustrates how cluster-paris leaves the paris-newyork-ps partnership.

phys-paris-1# geops leave-partnership paris-newyork-ps

Example 5–5 Deleting a Partnership

After cluster-paris leaves the paris-newyork-ps partnership, as described in the previous example, the only remaining member of the partnership is cluster-newyork. The paris-newyork-ps partnership can now be deleted by making its last remaining member, cluster-newyork, leave the partnership as follows:

phys-newyork-1# geops leave-partnership paris-newyork-ps

Next Steps

Repeat this procedure on the other cluster in the partnership.

Resynchronizing a Partnership

Partners become disconnected during a disaster situation, forcing the administrator to perform a takeover for a protection group that the partners share. When both clusters are brought online again, both partner clusters report as the primary of the protection group. You must resynchronize the configuration information of the local protection group with the configuration information that is retrieved from the partner.

If a cluster that is a member of a partnership fails, when the cluster restarts, it detects whether the partnership parameters have been modified while it was down. You decide which partnership configuration information you want to keep: the information on the cluster that failed or the information on the failover cluster. Then, resynchronize the configuration of the partnership accordingly.

You can detect that a partnership needs to be resynchronized by looking at the output of the geoadm status command. If the Configuration status is Synchronization Status Error, the partnership needs to be synchronized. If the Local status is Partnership Error, you should not resynchronize the partnership. Instead, wait for the heartbeat exchange to occur.

How to Resynchronize a Partnership

Before You Begin

Before you resynchronize a partnership, ensure that the following conditions are met:

The local cluster is Sun Cluster Geographic Edition enabled.
The local cluster was an active member of the partnership before failing.

Caution –

Resynchronizing a partnership overwrites the partnership configuration on the cluster where the command is run with the information from the partner cluster.

Steps

Log in to a node on the cluster that needs to be synchronized with the information retrieved from the partner cluster.

You must be assigned the Geo Management RBAC rights profile to complete this procedure. For more information about RBAC, see Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Software and RBAC.

Resynchronize the partnership.
# geops update partnership-name
partnership-name

Specifies the name of the partnership

Example 5–6 Resynchronizing a Partnership

The following example illustrates how to resynchronize a partnership:

# geops update paris-newyork-ps