Oracle^® Solaris Cluster Geographic Edition Data Replication Guide for Oracle Solaris Availability Suite

Adding a Data Replication Device Group to an Availability Suite Protection Group

This section describes the following information for administering data replication device groups in an Availability Suite protection group:

• How to Add a Data Replication Device Group to an Availability Suite Protection Group

• How the Data Replication Subsystem Verifies the Device Group

For details about configuring an Availability Suite protection group, see How to Create and Configure an Availability Suite Protection Group.

How to Add a Data Replication Device Group to an Availability Suite Protection Group

Before You Begin

A protection group is the container for the application resource groups, which contain data for services that are protected from disaster. Geographic Edition software protects the data by replicating it from the primary cluster to the secondary cluster. By adding an Oracle Solaris Cluster device group to a protection group, Geographic Edition software monitors the replication status of all volumes in the device group that belong to an Availability Suite volume set. Geographic Edition software also controls the role and state of the volume set during protection group operations like start, stop, switchover, and takeover.

Before you add a device group to a protection group, ensure that the following conditions are met:

• The protection group is defined on the local cluster.

• The protection group is offline on the local cluster and the partner cluster, if the partner cluster can be reached.

• The device group exists on both the local cluster and the partner cluster and has the same name on both..

• The Nodelist property of the device group contains the same entries in identical order to the Nodelist property of the protection group.

• The Local_logical_host property specifies a valid hostname that can be hosted by the local cluster and that is reserved for this device group.

• The Remote_logical_host property specifies a valid hostname that can be hosted by the remote cluster and that has been reserved for this device group.

• If the Enable_volume_set property is set to true, then the /var/cluster/geo/avs/device-group-volset.ini file must exist and contain valid entries on all nodes of both partner clusters. For information about configuring this file, see Enabling an Availability Suite Volume Set.

1. 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 Securing Geographic Edition Software in Oracle Solaris Cluster Geographic Edition Installation and Configuration Guide .

2. Add a data replication device group to the protection group.

   This command adds a device group to a protection group on the local cluster and propagates the new configuration to the partner cluster if the partner cluster contains a protection group of the same name. The device group to be added must exist and must have the same name on both clusters.

   # geopg add-device-group -p property [-p...] AVS-device-group protection-group

   –p property

   Specifies the properties of the data replication device group.

   You can specify the following Availability Suite properties:

   • Local_logical_host – Specifies the name of the local logical host that is used to replicate the device group.

   • Remote_logical_host – Specifies the name of the remote logical host that is used to replicate the device group.

   • Enable_volume_set – Specifies whether the volume sets in the file should be enabled automatically. Set to either True or False.

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

   AVS-device-group

   Specifies the name of the new data replication device group.

   protection-group

   Specifies the name of the protection group that will contain the new data replication device group.

   For information about the names and values that are supported by Geographic Edition software, see Appendix B, Legal Names and Values of Geographic Edition Entities, in Oracle Solaris Cluster Geographic Edition System Administration Guide .

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

This example creates an Availability Suite data replication device group in the avspg protection group.

# geopg add-device-group -p Local_logical_host=lh-paris-1 \
-p Remote_logical_host=lh-newyork-1 avsdg avspg

How the Data Replication Subsystem Verifies the Device Group

The device group that Availability Suite controls is added to a protection group. The data replication layer verifies that the device group exists and that the value of its Nodelist property contains the same entries in identical order to the Nodelist property of the protection group.

When the geopg add-device-group command runs, a lightweight resource group for the device group is created and brought online. The lightweight resource group contains the following resources:

• A logical hostname resource that is used for data replication, as specified in the Local_logical_host property

• An HAStoragePlus resource that controls the collocation of the device group with the lightweight resource group

For more information about lightweight resource groups and their resources, see Availability Suite Lightweight Resource Groups.

When you run the geopg add-device-group command, a replication resource of the type GeoCtlAVS is created in the replication resource group of each device group in the protection group and brought online. For information about the format of the replication resource group, see Availability Suite Replication Resource Groups.

The Nodelist property of the lightweight resource group and replication resource group contains the same entries in identical order to the Nodelist property of the protection group.

If a resource or resource group of the same name is already configured on the local cluster, Geographic Edition verifies the configuration and sets the Configuration to Error if the configuration is not correct.

If the Enable_volume_set property of this device group is set to True, then volume sets that are defined in the /var/cluster/geo/avs/AVS-devicegroup-volset.ini file are enabled. Otherwise, Geographic Edition software controls and monitors all volume sets that you enable manually by using the Availability Suite commands.

If the geopg add-device-group command is unsuccessful, the configuration of the protection group is not modified.

If the geopg add-device-group command is successful and the Configuration status on the local cluster is set to OK, then the new configuration is propagated to the partner cluster. This propagation causes the whole protection group configuration to revalidate on the partner cluster. During revalidation, the same entities are created on the partner cluster, including the lightweight resource group and the replication resource group. Volume sets are also enabled on the partner clusters if the /var/cluster/geo/avs/AVS-devicegroup-volset.ini file exists on the partner cluster and contains correctly defined volume sets. If the validation is unsuccessful, then the Configuration status on the partner cluster is set to Error on the partner cluster.

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

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If the device group on the partner cluster is validated successfully and the Enable_volume_set property of this device group is set to true, then the volume sets that are defined in the /var/cluster/geo/avs/AVS-devicegroup-volset.ini file are enabled on the partner cluster. Other volume sets of the device group are disabled.

After the device group has been added to the protection group, you can enable or disable the volume sets of the device group directly by using the Availability Suite commands. The /var/cluster/geo/avs/AVS-devicegroup-volset.ini file is used only when the protection group that contains the device group is successfully validated for the first time.