Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Data Replication Guide for EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility

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Creating, Modifying, Validating, and Deleting an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group

This section contains the following topics:

Note –

You can create protection groups that are not configured to use data replication. To create a protection group that does not use a data replication subsystem, omit the -d datareplicationtype option when you use the geopg command. The geoadm status command shows a state for these protection groups of Degraded.

For more information, see Creating a Protection Group That Does Not Require Data Replication in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

How to Create and Configure an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group

Before You Begin

Before you create a protection group, ensure that the following conditions are met:

The local cluster is a member of a partnership.
The protection group you are creating does not already exist.

Note –

Protection group names are unique in the global Sun Cluster Geographic Edition namespace. You cannot use the same protection group name in two partnerships on the same system.

You can also replicate the existing configuration of a protection group from a remote cluster to the local cluster. For more information, see Replicating the EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group Configuration to a Partner Cluster.

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 in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

Create a new protection group that uses SRDF replication by using the geopg create command.

This command creates a protection group on all nodes of the local cluster.
# geopg create -s partnershipname -o localrole -d srdf [-p property [-p...]] \ protectiongroupname
-s partnershipname

Specifies the name of the partnership.

-o localrole

Specifies the role of this protection group on the local cluster as either primary or secondary.

-d srdf

Specifies that the protection group data is replicated by the EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility software.

-p propertysetting
Specifies the properties of the protection group.

You can specify the following properties:
- Description – Describes the protection group.
- Timeout – Specifies the time-out period for the protection group in seconds.
- Nodelist – Lists the host names of the machines that can be primary for the replication subsystem.
- Cluster_dgs – Lists the device groups where the data is written.
For more information about the properties you can set, see Appendix A, Standard Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Properties, in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.
protectiongroupname

Specifies the name of the protection group.
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, in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

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

Example 2–2 Creating and Configuring an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group

This example creates an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility protection group on cluster-paris, which is set as the primary cluster.

# geopg create -s paris-newyork-ps -o primary -d srdf \
-p cluster_dgs=dg1 srdfpg

Requirements to Support Oracle Real Application Clusters With Data Replication Software

Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software supports Oracle Real Application Clusters with EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility software. Observe the following requirements when you configure Oracle Real Application Clusters:

Each CRS OCR and Voting Disk Location must be in its own device group on each cluster and cannot be replicated.
Static data such as CRS and database binaries are not required to be replicated. But this data must be accessible from all nodes of both clusters.
You must create a SUNW.ScalDeviceGroup resource in its own resource group for the device group that holds dynamic database files. This resource group must be separate from the resource group that holds the clusterware SUNW.ScalDeviceGroup resource.
To be able to leave RAC infrastructure resource groups outside of Sun Cluster Geographic Edition control, you must run Sun Cluster Geographic Edition binaries on both cluster partners and set the RAC protection group External_Dependency_Allowed property to true.
Do not add the CRS OCR and Voting Disk device group to the protection group's cluster_dgs property.
Do not add RAC infrastructure resource groups to the protection group. Only add the rac_server_proxy resource group and resource groups for device groups that are replicated to the protection group. Also, you must set to false the auto_start_on_new_cluster resource group property for the rac_server_proxy resource group and resource groups and for device groups that are replicated.
When you use a cluster file system for an Oracle RAC file system, such as a flash recovery area, alert, or trace log files, you must manually create on both clusters a separate resource group that uses the HAStoragePlus resource to bring online these corresponding file systems. You must set a strong resource dependency from nonClusterware SUNW.ScalDeviceGroup resources to this HAStoragePlus resource. Then add this HAStoragePlus resource group to the RAC protection group.

How to Create a Protection Group for Oracle Real Application Clusters

Before You Begin

Before you create a protection group for Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), ensure that the following conditions are met:

Read Requirements to Support Oracle Real Application Clusters With Data Replication Software.
The node list of the protection group must be the same as the node list of RAC framework resource group.
If one cluster is running RAC on a different number of nodes than another cluster, ensure that all nodes on both clusters have the same resource groups defined.
If you are using the VERITAS Volume Manager cluster feature to manage data, you must specify the cluster feature disk group and Sun Cluster device groups for other data volumes in the cluster_dgs property.

When a cluster and the VERITAS Volume Manager cluster feature software restart, the RAC framework automatically tries to import all cluster feature device groups that were imported already before cluster went down. Therefore, the attempt to import the device groups to the original primary fails.

Log in to a cluster node on the primary 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 in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

Create a new protection group by using the geopg create command.

This command creates a protection group on all nodes of the local cluster.
# geopg create -s partnershipname -o localrole -d srdf \ -p External_Dependency_Allowed=true [-p property [-p...]] protectiongroupname
-s partnershipname

Specifies the name of the partnership.

-o localrole

Specifies the role of this protection group on the local cluster as primary.

-d srdf

Specifies that the protection group data is replicated by the EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility software.

-p propertysetting
Specifies the properties of the protection group.

You can specify the following properties:
- Description – Describes the protection group.
- External_Dependency_Allowed - Specifies whether to allow any dependencies between resource groups and resources that belong to this protection group and resource groups and resources that do not belong to this protection group. For RAC, setting this property to true.
- Timeout – Specifies the timeout period for the protection group in seconds.
- Nodelist – Lists the host names of the machines that can be primary for the replication subsystem.
- Cluster_dgs – Specifies the VERITAS Volume Manager cluster feature disk group where the data is written.
For more information about the properties you can set, see Appendix A, Standard Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Properties, in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.
protectiongroupname

Specifies the name of the protection group.
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, in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

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

Add an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility device group to the protection group.
# geopg add-device-group [-p property [-p...]] protectiongroupname
-p propertysetting

Specifies the properties of the protection group.

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

protectiongroupname

Specifies the name of the protection group.

Add to the protection group only the rac_server_proxy resource group and the resource groups for device groups that are replicated.

Note –
Do not add the RAC framework resource group to the protection group. This ensures that, if the protection group becomes secondary on the node, the framework resource group does not become unmanaged. In addition, multiple RAC databases can be on the cluster, and the databases can be under Sun Cluster Geographic Edition control or not under its control.
# geopg add-resource-group resourcegroup protectiongroupname
resourcegroup

Specifies a comma-separated list of resource groups to add to or delete from the protection group. The specified resource groups must already be defined.

The protection group must be online before you add a resource group. The geopg add-resource-group command fails when a protection group is offline and the resource group that is being added is online.

Note –
If a protection group has already been started at the time that you add a resource group, the resource group remains unmanaged. You must start the resource group manually by running the geopg start command.

protectiongroupname

Specifies the name of the protection group.

Example 2–3 Creating a Protection Group for RAC

This example creates the protection group pg1 which uses RAC and the cluster feature.

A cluster feature disk group oracle-dg controls the data which is replicated by the EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility device group DG01. The node list of the RAC framework resource group is set to all nodes of the cluster.

Create the protection group on the primary cluster with the cluster feature disk group oracle-dg.

# geopg create -s pts1 -o PRIMARY -d srdf -p cluster_dgs=racdbdg \
-p external_dependency_allowed=true pg1
Protection group "pg1" successfully created.

Add the EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility device group DG01 to protection group pg1.

# geopg add-device-group DG01 pg1
Device group "DG01" successfully added to the protection group "pg1".

Add the rac_server_proxy_rg resource group and the replicated device-group resource groups, hasp4rac-rg and scaldbdg-rg, to the protection group.
# geopg add-resource-group rac_server_proxy-rg,hasp4rac-rg,scaldbdg-rg pg1

How the Data Replication Subsystem Validates the Device Group

The Sun Cluster Geographic Edition data replication layer validates the protection group's replication role against the configuration of the EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility RDF1 and RDF2 devices. If the configurations do not match, the validation returns an error.

If the Cluster_dgs property is specified, then the data replication layer verifies that the device group specified is a valid Sun Cluster device group. The data replication layer also verifies that the device group is of a valid type.

Note –

The device groups that are specified in the Cluster_dgs property must be written to only by applications that belong to the protection group. This property must not specify device groups that receive information from applications outside the protection group.

A Sun Cluster replication resource group is automatically created when the protection group is created.

Caution –

Do not change, remove, or bring offline these resources or resource groups. Use only Sun Cluster Geographic Edition commands to administer replication resource groups and resources that are internal entities managed by Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software. Altering the configuration or state of these entities directly with Sun Cluster commands could result in unrecoverable failure.

How to Modify an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group

Before You Begin

Before modifying the configuration of your protection group, ensure that the protection group you want to modify exists locally.

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 in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

Modify the configuration of the protection group.

This command modifies the properties of a protection group on all nodes of the local cluster. If the partner cluster contains a protection group of the same name, this command also propagates the new configuration information to the partner cluster.
# geopg set-prop -p property [-p...] protectiongroupname
-p propertysetting

Specifies the properties of the protection group.

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

protectiongroupname

Specifies the name of the protection group.

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, in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

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

Example 2–4 Modifying the Configuration of a Protection Group

This example modifies the Timeout property of the protection group that was created in Example 2–2.

# geopg set-prop -p Timeout=2700 srdfpg

Validating an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group

During protection group validation, the EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility data replication layer of the Sun Cluster Geographic Edition software validates the following:

The SYMCLI is installed on each of the nodes in the Nodelist property.
The specified device group is a valid Sun Cluster device group. The data replication layer uses the scstat -D command if the Cluster_dgs property is specified. The data replication layer also verifies that the device group is of a valid type.
The properties are valid for each EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility device group that has been added to the protection group.

When the geoadm status output displays that the Configuration status of a protection group is Error, you can validate the configuration by using the geopg validate command. This command checks the current state of the protection group and its entities.

If the protection group and its entities are valid, then the Configuration status of the protection groups is set to OK. If the geopg validate command finds an error in the configuration files, then the command displays a message about the error and the configuration remains in the error state. In such a case, you can fix the error in the configuration, and run the geopg validate command again.

How to Validate an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group

Before You Begin

Ensure that the protection group you want to validate exists locally and that the common agent container is online on all nodes of both clusters in the partnership.

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 in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

Validate the configuration of the protection group.

This command validates the configuration of the protection group on the local cluster only. To validate the protection group configuration on the partner cluster, run the command again on the partner cluster.
# geopg validate protectiongroupname
protectiongroupname

Specifies a unique name that identifies a single protection group

Example 2–5 Validating the Configuration of a Protection Group

This example validates a protection group.

# geopg validate protectiongroupname

How to Delete an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group

Before You Begin

If you want to delete the protection group everywhere, you must run the geopg delete command on each cluster where the protection group exists.

Before deleting a protection group, ensure that the following conditions are met:

The protection group you want to delete exists locally.
The protection group is offline on all clusters from which you want to delete it.

Note –

You must remove the application resource groups from the protection group in order to keep the application resource groups online while deleting the protection group. See Example 2–9 for examples of this procedure.

Log in to one of the nodes on the primary cluster, cluster-paris.

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 in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

Delete the protection group.

This command deletes the configuration of the protection group from the local cluster. The command also removes the replication resource group for each EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility device group in the protection group. This command does not alter the pair state of the EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility device group.
# geopg delete protectiongroupname
protectiongroupname

Specifies the name of the protection group

To also delete the protection group on the secondary cluster, repeat step 1 and step 2 on cluster-newyork.

Example 2–6 Deleting a Protection Group

This example deletes a protection group from both partner clusters. The protection group is offline on both partner clusters.

In this example, cluster-paris is the primary cluster. For a reminder of the sample cluster configuration, see Example Sun Cluster Geographic Edition Cluster Configuration in Sun Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide.

# rlogin phys-paris-1 -l root
phys-paris-1# geopg delete srdfpg
# rlogin phys-newyork-1 -l root
phys-newyork-1# geopg delete srdfpg

Example 2–7 Deleting an EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility Protection Group While Keeping Application Resource Groups Online

This example keeps online two application resource groups, apprg1 and apprg2, while deleting their protection group, srdfpg from both partner clusters. Remove the application resource groups from the protection group, then delete the protection group.

phys-paris-1# geopg remove-resource-group apprg1,apprg2 srdfpg
phys-paris-1# geopg stop -e global srdfpg 
phys-paris-1# geopg delete srdfpg
phys-newyork-1# geopg delete srdfpg