Planning the Infrastructure Implementation › Failover Support and Hardware Replacement › Failover Support

Failover Support

The failover support is available only for Windows operating environments and Microsoft SQL Server databases.

Failover supports installation of the manager components on two different computers running Microsoft Cluster. One system needs to be the active node running the manager functionality and the others are standby passive systems, having the manager software installed but not activated.

Installing on a Cluster

Client Automation has no functionality in place to detect system failures and to automatically switch from the active to the passive node in case of a system failure.

Client Automation can be installed in two modes: either as an Active ITCM Manager or as a Passive ITCM Manager. The terms "Active" and "Passive" refer to whether the DSM manager is active or passive; they do not refer to the Cluster Node (which may itself be active or passive).

When installing Client Automation in a cluster, one instance of the DSM manager will be installed as the Active ITCM Manager and each of the other instances will be installed as a Passive ITCM Manager.

To install an Active ITCM Manager

1. On the cluster’s Active Node, launch the Client Automation installer in the usual way and perform a custom installation.
2. Select the Manager components and any other components that are to form part of the installation.
3. In the Configure Manager dialog, enter the name of the Management Database Server.
4. Click the Recovery button.
5. In the dialog that appears, select the Enable Recovery Support and Active options.
6. Enter the name of the cluster and the location of the shared drive.

   Note: If you want to install a DSM domain manager with a local Microsoft SQL Server in a Microsoft Cluster environment, Client Automation must be installed into the Microsoft SQL Server Cluster Group using the Microsoft SQL Server virtual name.

7. Continue through the installation, until you reach the Choose Destination Location dialog where you configure the Destination folder.

   The Destination folder must be somewhere on the computer's local disk (not the shared cluster disk).

   The location of the configuration data must point to the cluster’s shared disk. This is done automatically based upon the information entered in the "failover" dialog. However, you may review these locations by clicking on the Advanced button. The location of the Shared Components must also be on the computer’s local disk; this location is configured using the same Advanced button.

8. Click Next and continue through the installer dialogs until the installation starts.

   The installation of a manager with CCS on a cluster computer is slightly different from that on a standalone, non-clustered computer. Usually the installation of CCS is silent. However, on a cluster Client Automation will invoke an interactive installation of CCS.

   Important! Do not change any of the information in any of these dialogs, as Client Automation has populated them with the appropriate values; simply click Next through the dialogs until the CCS install starts.

To install a Passive ITCM Manager

1. Before installing on the other computer (or computers) in the cluster, you must make sure that the cluster groups are available and the shared resources are functional. Alternatively, make the computer the active node in the cluster.
2. Launch the Client Automation installer in the usual way and perform a custom installation.
3. Select the same components that were selected in the Active ITCM Manager installation.
4. In the Configure Manager dialog, enter the name of the Management Database Server.
5. Click the Recovery button.
6. In the dialog that appears, select the Enable Recovery Support and Passive options.
7. Next, the installer asks for the location of the DSMRecovery.ini file.

   This is located in the Client Automation configuration data directory, which will be on the cluster’s shared disk. The actual location would have been defined during the installation of the Active ITCM Manager.

8. Click Next and continue through the installer dialogs, and start the installation.

   As with the Active ITCM Manager installation, the installation of CCS is performed interactively.

   Important! Again, do not change any of the information in any of these dialogs, as Client Automation has populated them with the appropriate values; simply click Next through the dialogs until the CCS install starts.

Once the installations are complete, then the cluster resources can be moved back to the cluster’s active node.

Now when the Active Cluster Node switches between computers in the cluster, the Passive ITCM Manager must be notified. This is achieved by running the ActivateManagerNode.bat file that is located in the bin directory of the DSM manager’s installation location. Alternatively, if a cluster management system is to be used, then the cluster manager can be configured to execute the content of the ActivateManagerNode.bat file.

Notes:

• For more information about setting up clusters, see the green paper titled Client Automation/CA Unicenter Desktop & Server Management at http://ca.com/greenbooks.
• If installing to a non-default named SQL instance ensure that the TCP/IP port numbers of the instance are the same on all nodes of the cluster. If this is not the case, modify the port numbers accordingly. Also ensure that SQL-Server Browser is running.
• Currently, a boot server is not supported on a cluster.
• On Windows 2008 (and Windows Vista) the ActivateManagerNode.bat command file must be run with full administrator rights. If you are logged in as the administrator user, this user automatically has full rights by default. If, however, you are logged in as some other user who is also in the Administrators group, then Windows arranges matters so that this user only has ordinary user rights and, therefore, cannot run this command file successfully. To change this, the ActivateManagerNode.bat command file must be run as the elevated user. For example, to open an elevated command line window, right-click the Command Prompt icon and select Run as Administrator. The command file can then be run from there.