to boot or not to boot (Solaris)

[Iztok Umek]

Lisa Lorenzin <lorenzin@1000plus.com> said:

>
> Hi all,
>
> I have a quick question for the Solaris geeks in the house...
>
> I'm running Solaris 2.7 on a new Sun E220R.  This server is a hot backup
> for another server, but can't be connected to the network (same IP
> addresses configured on the NICs).
>
> SO - what's the best state to keep this box in while it's offline?

How can you talk about hot backup if machine is down? ;)

I would do the following:

Assign both servers different IPs and third (virtual) IP for the application
(here I am assuming that you need hot backup for the app).

Keep both machines up. Patch both with the same patches, same upgrades to your
application etc.

Then either use some HA package or write little shell scripts that would check
for the "pulse" on the primary machine and if app is not responding, then take
the virtual IP and start working. You might want to have a simmilar script on
the secondary box so when it comes back on-line it will not mess things up.

http://www.bolthole.com/freeha/
http://www.fatalmind.com/projects/hatools/
http://www.lemuria.org/Heart/

This one is Linux, but you might get some ideas: http://linux-ha.org/






--
Iztok Umek
Smart Information Consulting
CCSA/CCSE, SCSA/SCNA, GISO