topic Re: Virtualize controllers with MultiStore in ONTAP Discussions

Virtualize controllers with MultiStore

magnus_emmoth — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 07:07:48 GMT

Hi,

I have two FAS2020 running active-active SyncMirror with dual controllers. I would like to create as good redundancy as possible for the controllers.

Is it possible to use MultiStore to create one single virtual controller using MultiStore, so that if one of the controllers would break, the other would take over?

Magnus

Re: Virtualize controllers with MultiStore

fabien_ledoux — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:04:37 GMT

You can but it's not automatic.

Vfiler disaster recovery commands can replicate a vfiler and its configuration on another controller using snapmirror, but the takeover has do be done manually.

Re: Virtualize controllers with MultiStore

magnus_emmoth — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:55:55 GMT

What happens with the filer when one of the controller breaks?

Will the filer become inaccessible?

Magnus

Re: Virtualize controllers with MultiStore

scottgelb — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:45:47 GMT

Cluster failover takes over the partner node including all vFilers... so any data on one node whether vfiler0 or a vfiler will failover to the partner if your cluster is enabled and network interface partner parameters are set. This failover is separate from multistore but does handle the vfilers. A virtual filer runs on a single node at a time and cannot run over both controllers concurrently (I think that is possibly what you implied in the original question).

So, confirm that clustering is enabled on your FAS2020 then if one of the nodes fails, the partner node will takeover the failed controller (network, aggrs/disks/volumes/shares/exports/luns/vfilers, etc).

Re: Virtualize controllers with MultiStore

magnus_emmoth — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 07:26:06 GMT

Hi,

Maybe there are other solutions to my problem. Here is a further explanation of what I would like to achieve.

We are running VMware Vsphere 4 and all the virtual machines are stored in the NAS env.

It would be great to have a storage environment setup so that VMware will work towards one IP address.

So, the two FAS2020 would be synched with each other, whereas one is the primary and the other one is only used for redundancy.

Also, the two FAS2020 will be equipped with two controllers.

It would be great to setup the each FAS2020 so that if one of the controllers fail, the other one will take over.

Furthermore, if thy primary FAS2020 fail, the redundant FAS2020 will take over the IP address and VMware will not notice this.

We will be using Fault tolerance and vmotion on the VMware virtual machines.

Is this possible with multistore or any other solution for FAS2020?

Magnus