SOI High Availability Options. What are you running?

[Daniel Blanco]

Hello, wanted to ask those in the SOI community how are you running SOI with the option of High Availability (HA)? We are planning this out and need some good options to consider.

From a DR perspective we are using SRM (Service Replication Model) over a point to point between our DataCenters.

But for HA has anyone done this and what option did you go with? Documentation says its supported via MSFT Clustering and Arcserve. Were we are not purchasing Arcserve so looks like MS Clustering.

 

Has anyone done this and have any pointers for new users to consider?

 

Thank you,

Dan

[Anon Anon]

Hi,

 

As long as the MS Cluster is setup correctly installing SOI use MS Cluster for HA was very simple just following the guide on wiki.ca.com https://wiki.ca.com/display/SOI33/Implementation+in+a+Microsoft+Cluster+Server+Environment. I'm not sure what Service Replication Model is but I know VMware some note worthy considerations around the use of MS Clusters and so that might rule out VMware SRM (Site Recovery Manager).

 

I hope this helps some.

 

Regards,

 

Simon

[paimon.soror]

Hi Simon;

 

I was hoping to get some more information on this.  My company has been looking for a solution for HA as well and aren't looking to purchase Arcserve.  Based on your documentation it looks like the MS Cluster is the next best option.  Do you know of any disadvantages with using MSC over Arcserve?  One of the biggest selling points for us with a HA solution would be the ability to patch one cluster while the other one is being used by the customer.  For example, if we need to update a policy on a connector, we can switch users over to the secondary, update the primary, and then flip the users back.

[Anon Anon]

Hi,

 

There is one major question that needs answering when talking about HA, MSC, Arcserve and SOI.

 

Do you need HA or HA & DR?

 

If you need HA then I think MSC is a far more elegant solution assuming the costs are OK. If costs do not permit a MSC then Arcserve is the next best option but has a higher administrative overhead (as far as I can tell).

 

If however you want HA and DR and your company has shared storage then MSC across two Data Centres again I think is the best solution. Its highly available and can failed over too in the event of an emergency / other DR scenario. Again if cost has a bearing here then Arcserve is the next best thing.

 

The issue for me arrises when the organisation wants HA in each Data Centre and wants DR. I see not technical reason why Arcserve can't be used in conjunction MSC, MSC to provide the high availability and Arcserve to provide the DR failover. However this is not documented and I can't find any information how I might go about configuring MSC and Arcserve to meet these requirements. Also would CA support such a solution?

 

I hope this helps and I hope someone has some information on this HA & DR solution.

 

Regards,

 

Simon

[paimon.soror]

Thanks for the reply Simon;

 

I realized that I interchanged the two when I mentioned that we are looking for an HA solution, when in fact we are looking for a DR solution.  We currently have HA on our database which can switch over seamlessly in the event of an outage.  What we need however, is a DR solution like the one you mentioned above.  Our spectrum environment is already set up for this, using both primary and secondary servers for each of its landscapes.  SOI however doesn't have anything like this in our environment for its connectors and manager.

[Anon Anon]

Hi,

 

I don't think your alone in this requirement and I am facing the same issue with a SOI implementation. We have just had to break our MSC in favour of using Arcserve. we are setting a single SA Manager in each DC and using Arcserve to provide failover between the two DCs. This will in effect be the same solution that we have for Spectrum currently, however I think this is a massive oversight by CA. The DR & HA solution for SOI is very poor and for an application which in affect is the top of the enterprise management stack, i.e. it is the visualisation layer to any integrated enterprise management solution.

 

I think it is technically possible to use MSC to provide HA within a DC and Arcserver to provide a DR solution but its not documented anywhere and the current installation guides do not explicitly say the to can or cannot be used together.

 

I'm sorry I couldn't have been of more help.

 

Regards,

 

Simon

[Daniel Blanco]

Hi Simon, thanks for the reply. I'm wondering if I currently have my SOI v3.3 deployment running in 2012R2 can I add to each box running the SOI component its respective Cluster Node 2 to make the cluster, then run thru the post steps or does anyone know if setting up SOI in a cluster, does it have to be done from a clean state. What about creating the cluster and setting up HA after the fact?

 

I also agree SOI is really LACKING in the ability to provide HA. It should really follow how Spectrum provides HA where you can stand up up a 2nd instance of the component running on different machines. Each machine sends a heartbeat to each other, if the heart beat isn't detected the respective backup kicks in.

[Anon Anon]

Hi DBlanco,

 

I have never tried to retrospectively add the Cluster HA to an existing system and my interpretation of the install guide would be that this should be done with a clean system. I wonder though if you could back up your SAMStore DB, build the clustered system and then restore your DB back? That might be worth looking at.

 

Kind regards,

 

Simon