Active IQ Unified Manager Discussions

High Availability using OnCommand

emanuel
6,132 Views

Hello

I am revisiting a topic i touched a few years ago.

I am curious to see if anyone has used any of the OnCommand suites in a High Availability configuration ( MSCS, Veritas Cluster, or in a VMWare vCenter ).  Looking at the Field Portal using a few search keys did not find much and searching the Communities has not brought any direct hits yet.

I am working with a client that is expressing interest in keeping their several OnCommand servers online and are currently hosted on bare metal boxes.

Does anyone have any TRs or good use cases I can read up on?

9 REPLIES 9

adaikkap
6,133 Views

Hi Emanuel,

     The below TR should give you complete info on MSCS and VCS.

This TR gives a step by step details on how to configure High Availability for DFM on Windows using Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) and on Linux using Veritas Cluster Server (VCS).

TR 3767-High-Availability Support for DataFabric Manager Server

Regards

adai

mike_burris
6,132 Views

If I read your post correctly you're more asking for use cases and examples of folks actually putting those configurations into production correct?  On the flip side, if I did by chance did read it wrong, I found the following docs on how to do MSCS and VCS:

MSCS:
https://library.netapp.com/ecmdocs/ECMP1113536/html/html/GUID-D728CCFC-A55A-4075-A55D-026E80419567.html

VCS:

https://library.netapp.com/ecmdocs/ECMP1113536/html/html/GUID-76210EB4-894E-48C3-B2F3-893B2593D9EF.html

I've not tried it with OC, but I know there were no issues running OM/PM 4.x in an MSCS setup - worked (and believe it still is) fine.

Mike

emanuel
6,132 Views

Hello

Thanks for the link.  One big takeaway i am seeing is that iSCSI is not supported in a VCS / OnCommand environment?

mike_burris
6,132 Views

I'm honestly not sure, but reading the docs they do specifically call out FC and I saw no reference to iSCSI.  The possibility is there that it may work, but I'd contact support to verify (perhaps the docs just havent been updated?).

Mike

kryan
6,132 Views

Unless this has changed in recent documentation, iSCSI is not supported for the OnCommand Unified Manager (DFM) Linux VCS clusters.

https://kb.netapp.com/support/index?page=content&id=3011237

Regarding the LUN type:

  • For any Windows configuration (stand alone or cluster), either iSCSI or  FC LUNs are acceptable.
  • For Linux stand-alone servers, either iSCSI or FC LUNs are acceptable.
  • For Linux VCS clusters, FC is the only choice (currently).

kryan
6,133 Views

From the OnCommand Unified Manager Core Package 5.1 "Installation and Setup Guide" p122:

Configuration limitations for the OnCommand Core Package in VCS

You must be aware of the configuration limitations before you install the OnCommand Core Package in a VCS environment.

The following are configuration limitations in VCS:

• Only two-node clusters are supported.

• The OnCommand Core Package in VCS is not supported on VMware.

• For shared disks, the storage back-end must be an FC-based storage only.

• iSCSI storage is not supported for the OnCommand Core Package in VCS.

loudymanschwab
6,132 Views

My company runs OM/DFM 4.0.2d12 on MSCS with FC SAN.  Haven't had too many problems with it, but upgrades and such can be a bit tricky (as the install package does not understand it's running on a cluster and that services are therefore managed by MSCS).

emanuel
6,132 Views

Hello all

Thank you for the feedback ... really good stuff.

I am going to make presentation next week on a couple of possibilities with HA OnCommand; the client is using three installations with Linux so MSCS will not likely be one of them which leads me to one of two possibilities.

1.     A baremetal based Linux two node system using VCS with shared FCP based LUN storage on NetApp.

2.     if FCP is not in their diet, then I will make suggestion for a VM Ware host on a vCenter managed system that has the ability to failover a VM if a VM is lost.

This client will also be migrating 7-mode resources to c-mode clusters over time and I will plan on presenting an installation for OnCommand Unified Manager in C-Mode "mode"

I will read your replies in depth tomorrow.  If you got more, I will take it 🙂

Big Thanks!

STORAGE_CIT
6,132 Views

I think your only choice is number 2 (vSphere HA) because you could use a Netapp FC-LUN multipathed OR a VCS-Ressource (if you need the possibilty to created snap´s of this LUN)  ...

In my last project, I designed and operated one of the largest Single-Instance DFM-Installations (more than 200 Filers/Instance), which is still "running" on a VCS-Cluster with Netapp-FC-LUNs.

Based on this experience i can only suggest: If you have the choice, don´t do it (don´t even think about it...)

One Example: Absolutely NONE of our cluster-takeover (unplanned and the planned one´s as well) worked properly.

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