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SMS HA Administration Concepts and Planning

The most important aspects of the SMS HA cluster are the heartbeat connection and database replication. Periodically verify that both activities are performing as expected. If you need to upgrade SMS software or apply an SMS patch, you must break apart the cluster and upgrade or patch each of the two SMS HA cluster nodes independently. The reason for this is that one of the nodes is always passive, and therefore, the SMS software is not fully operational and cannot be upgraded or patched. If you need to perform maintenance on the active SMS server, for example, to swap out a network card, you can invoke a failover on the active node, which deactivates it and activates the passive SMS server. Once deactivated, you can take the node offline, power it off, and perform maintenance. Two methods are available in the Admin - High Availability screen to deactivate the currently active SMS server:

Swap: swaps the roles of the SMS HA cluster nodes so that the passive SMS server becomes the active SMS server and the active SMS server is reconfigured as the passive server. This process resynchronizes and restarts the nodes to ensure that the cluster's HA status is maintained. This process involves a temporary client disconnect and is temporarily more disruptive than failover.

Failover: invokes a failover of the active node in the SMS HA cluster, thereby activating the passive SMS server and making it immediately available for use. To bring the failed-over node back online and reinstate a fully functioning HA cluster, you must manually synchronize and restart the deactivated node.

Cluster requirements

  • System resources – Both systems must have similar memory, CPU, and disk space. Both systems must also have the same disk partitions, which are set during initial install and are identified internally by a partition number.
  • FIPS mode – Both systems must have the same FIPS mode configured. FIPS mode cannot be changed when HA is configured.
  • SMS certificate key – Both systems must have compatible SMS certificate key sizes. For example, the active SMS cannot be running a 1K key and the passive SMS be running a 2K key. You cannot install the 2K key in either SMS while the SMS is running in HA. To install a 2K key, disable the cluster, install the 2K key on each SMS, and then reconfigure the cluster. A 2K key is required on both systems if HA is configured in FIPS mode.
  • SNMP – You cannot modify SNMP settings for the passive SMS server after you configure SMS HA. If you use SNMP to monitor and manage your SMS servers, you must configure the SMS's connectivity to an SNMP server before you configure the SMS HA cluster. To modify SNMP settings, disable the cluster, modify the SNMP settings on both servers separately, and then reconfigure the cluster.

Unsupported features

IPv6 – SMS HA is not supported with IPv6. If the SMS is IPv6 only, the HA configuration button shows an error when selected.

External database replication – External database replication and SMS HA features both leverage the same functionality in the underlying database. The SMS database does not support replication to multiple destinations; therefore, Trend does not recommend using SMS HA and external database replication at the same time.

 


How To: Common Task

  1. Log in to the SMS from a client.
  2. On the SMS toolbar, navigate to the Admin > High Availability tab.

HA Cluster Status

In the HA Cluster Status area of the High Availability screen, you can view the current status of the SMS HA cluster and view the management IP address and network of the SMS cluster. You can also configure and set up a new SMS HA cluster.

How To: Configure an SMS HA Cluster

  1. In the HA Cluster Status area, click Configure. The SMS High Availability Wizard opens.
  2. Read the Welcome screen and click Next.
  3. Choose the network configuration for your SMS HA cluster. If you want all communications to occur over a single network, choose Primary Only. If you want replication and heartbeat signals to occur over a secondary, intra-cluster network path, choose Primary and Secondary.
  4. Click Next.
  5. If you want to use a Shared Virtual Management IP address, check the check box and enter the IP address. Selecting this option requires that the Shared Virtual Management IP address and the Maintenance IP addresses of the active and passive SMS servers be in the same subnet.
  6. Enter the maintenance IP address of the SMS system you designate as the passive SMS server.
  7. Click Next.
  8. If you chose the Primary and Secondary network configuration, enter the secondary IP addresses for both the active and passive SMS servers. If you do not require the IP addresses to reside in the same subnet, uncheck the check box and provide gateway IP addresses for the active and passive SMS servers.
  9. Click Next.
  10. Enter the login credentials for the passive SMS server. The credentials must be those of a user with SuperUser rights.
  11. Click Configure. The Configuration Status dialog box opens and displays the ongoing status. When the configuration finishes, the HA Cluster Synchronization dialog box opens.
  12. You must synchronize the SMS databases on the two SMS cluster nodes. The source and destination server IP addresses are shown. Check the check box for Synchronizing the HA cluster. You can also check the box for Include historical event data.
  13. Click Finish.
  14. A dialog box states that the client's connection to the SMS server has been lost. All client connections are disconnected because access to the SMS database is prohibited during the synchronization process. To monitor progress, click More. The HA Synchronization Status dialog box opens, displaying a progress bar, time elapsed, etc.
  15. When synchronization finishes, the SMS client automatically attempts to reestablish a connection with the active SMS server. When the connection is reestablished, the SMS client opens to the Admin - High Availability screen.
  16. Verify the cluster's operational state by ensuring the Active SMS status displays Active and the Passive SMS status displays Passive. If you chose the Primary and Secondary network configuration, verify that the Heartbeat IP addresses for each SMS cluster node are as expected.

How To: Synchronize Two Nodes in an SMS HA Cluster

SMS monitors the need to synchronize the cluster nodes. In typical operations, you will not need to synchronize. When you manually failover a cluster node or take offline one of the nodes, you need to re-synchronize the SMS cluster.

  1. In the HA Cluster Status area, click Synchronize.
  2. In the dialog box, you can choose to include or exclude historical event data from the synchronization. You can also select the synchronization source, either the default source or the most recent active SMS server, or specify another source from the drop-down list.

How To: Disable SMS HA

  1. In the HA Cluster area, click Disable.
  2. Once disabled, the two nodes of the SMS HA cluster act independently. To prevent the two servers from competing, ensure one of the SMS servers is rendered inaccessible to SMS clients and devices. The best way to accomplish this is to shut down one of the servers.

Active SMS - In the Active SMS area of the High Availability screen, the SMS displays the system name, status, maintenance IP address, and heartbeat IP address of the active SMS server. To change the roles of the active and passive nodes or deactivate an active SMS server, see the tasks described in the Passive SMS section.

Passive SMS - In the Passive SMS area of the High Availability screen, the SMS displays the system name, status, maintenance IP address, and heartbeat IP address of the passive SMS server. From within this area, you can manually activate the passive SMS server, which in turn deactivates the current active SMS server if it is operational by invoking a failover. You can also swap the roles of the active and passive SMS servers.

How To: Swap Roles of SMS HA Cluster Nodes

This task describes how to swap the roles of the active and passive SMS servers and automatically resynchronize the servers to maintain a high availability cluster.

  1. From the Admin Navigation menu, select High Availability.
  2. In the Passive SMS area, click Swap.
  3. When the dialog box appears, click OK to start the swap process.

During this process, the passive SMS server is promoted to active status, and the active server is reconfigured to the role of the passive SMS server. This process can take several minutes, during which the cluster is resynchronized, nodes are restarted, and the client is temporarily disconnected to reestablish the cluster to a fully functional active-passive state. The operational state of the cluster is shown as Configured for the active SMS server and the passive SMS server until the synchronization process finishes.

How To: Invoke Failover to Activate a Passive SMS

This task describes how to activate a passive SMS server and immediately begin using it as the active SMS server. This action is useful when performing maintenance tasks on the active node. To return the failed-over node to active status, you must manually re-synchronize and restart the server.

  1. From the Admin Navigation menu, select High Availability.
  2. In the Passive SMS area, click Failover.
  3. When the dialog box appears, select OK to invoke failover and activate the passive SMS server.

The active server fails over to the passive server, which becomes your active server. You can power off the deactivated server and perform maintenance. To reactivate your passive server and reinstate your cluster to a fully functioning high-availability state, you must bring the deactivated server back online, synchronize the cluster databases, and restart the server.

 

Reference: SMS User Guide