On 30/10/2009, at 11:18 , Tim Mooney wrote:
In regard to: [Networker] DR qeustions, Matthew Powell said (at
10:25am on...:
I have a Networker 7.4 environment with only 1 backup server. I was
curious if I set up a Storage Node would that be able to take over
for
the primary if I have a hardware failure on the primary server? Or
would
it be easier just to set up another backup server that points to the
same disk space? Thanks for your time.
Since no one else has responded, I'll take a stab at this. If others
respond and contradict anything I say, they're right and I'm
wrong. ;-)
There's no easy way to promote a storage node to be a full NetWorker
server. You would have to go through exactly the same procedure
(the full
DR procedure) to get your NetWorker server back, whether you're
starting
with a box that's already a storage node or you're just starting
with some
random server.
While Conrad has already responded as well mentioning Autostart, I
thought I'd give a brief description of another scenario.
In another job I was tasked with delivering an "auto-failover" option
between the backup server and the storage node, and Autostart/LAAM/
whatever it was called at the time wasn't going to fly. There were
some advantages to the setup in question that allowed an automatic
failover – library connected to and controlled by storage node, SAN
connected NetWorker drive, etc.
The process was based on the assumption of the backup server kicking
the bucket in a way that was not going to be easily repaired near end
of much, in which case full backups had to proceed. So, the script/
utility in question, when run on the storage node and having done
exhaustive "are you really really sure you want to go ahead and do
this?" would:
(-) Have had NetWorker server+storage node+client installed
previously, but just the NetWorker server option set for manual start
(Windows)
(-) Have clients already configured to accept server and storage node
as valid servers
(a) Stop NetWorker on the storage node
(b) Drop the storage node NetWorker drive LUN
(c) Take the NetWorker server NetWorker drive LUN from the storage array
(d) Manually edit the res database:
- Adjusting the library resource name from "rd=X" to just X
- Modifying the storage node attribute for all hosts
- Disable the ADV_FILE devices normally on the backup server
- Update a bunch of custom groups that were server name specific
(e) Start NetWorker
(f) Reset/Reinventory the library
(g) Restart groups that had been in operation
I'm working off about a 4 year old memory here, so there's probably
some changes. The point is, it worked. It's not for the faint of heart
though, and was only possible in a very specific sort of configuration
too.
The lesson: If Autostart now does properly support clustering and
storage node promotion (which I seem to have recalled reading
somewhere myself), then it's probably a good starting point. However,
as Tim mentioned, you'll then loose any load spread that you would get
by no longer having both hosts.
Cheers,
Preston.
--
Preston de Guise
"Enterprise Systems Backup and Recovery: A Corporate Insurance Policy":
http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Systems-Backup-Recovery-Corporate/dp/1420076396
http://www.enterprisesystemsbackup.com
NetWorker blog: http://nsrd.wordpress.com
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