Audience
This workshop is intended for system administrators and technical support staff who will be working with VCS.
Prerequisites
The workshop requires prior knowledge of UNIX system administration (specifically Solaris or Linux).
Experience of developing shell or Perl scripts is helpful.
A working knowledge of VERITAS Volume Manager will be useful, although not essential.
Duration
5 days. Hands on.
This course is available on site only. Please call for details.
Course Objectives
VERITAS Cluster Server (VCS) enables an organization to monitor systems and application services, and to restart services on a different system when hardware or software fails. The key to understanding VCS is to learn the various components and how they interact with one another. These include:
- Clusters
- Resources and resource types
- Service groups
- Agents
- Communications (GAB and LLT)
This course introduces the concepts of VERITAS Cluster Server 5.x on UNIX/Linux. Lecture content covers the principles of cluster installation and management. Practical workshops teach the delegate how to manage cluster installation and configuration, use of the appropriate administration tools, maintenance, recovery and troubleshooting. Delegates will build a 2-node cluster and provide NFS services from the cluster.
At the end of this course, delegates will be able to:
- Understand, install and configure VERITAS Cluster Server
- Configure service groups and resources
- Manage and maintain a cluster configuration
- Identify and resolve problems
Course Content
Cluster Server Concepts
High availability (HA) concepts
Clustering concepts
Clustering prerequisites
VCS Building Blocks
VCS terminology
Cluster communication
VCS architecture
Preparing for VCS Implementation
Requirements and recommendations for hardware and software
Preparing for installation
Installing VCS
Using the VERITAS product installer
VCS configuration files
Viewing the default VCS configuration
Other installation considerations
VCS Operations
Managing applications in a cluster environment
Service group operations
Using the VCS Simulator
VCS Configuration Methods
Starting and stopping VCS
Configuration methods
Controlling access to VCS
Preparing Services for HA
Preparing applications for VCS
One-time configuration tasks
Testing the application service
Stopping an application service
Migrating an application service
Online Configuration
Adding resources
Solving common configuration errors
Testing the service group
Offline Configuration
Offline configuration practices and tools
Solving offline configuration problems
Testing the service group
Configuration Notification
Notification overview
Configuring notification
Using triggers for notification
Handling Resource Faults
How VCS responds to resource faults
Determining failover duration
Controlling fault behaviour
Recovering from resource faults
Fault notification
Event handling
Cluster Communications
VCS communications review
Cluster membership
Cluster interconnect configuration
Joining the cluster membership
Changing the interconnect configuration
System and Communication Faults
Ensuring data integrity
Cluster interconnect failures
I/O Fencing
Data protection requirements
I/O fencing concepts and components
I/O fencing operations
I/O fencing implementation
Configuring I/O fencing
Troubleshooting
Monitoring VCS
Troubleshooting guide
Archiving VCS-related files
Clustering Applications
Application service overview
VCS agents for managing applications
Clustering NFS
Preparing NFS for HA
Testing the NFS service
Configuring an NFS service group
NFS lock failover
Workshop: Reconfiguring Cluster Membership
Removing a system from a running VCS cluster
Adding a new system to a running VCS cluster
Merging two running VCS clusters
Service Group Dependencies
Common application relationships
Service group dependency definition
Configuring service group dependencies
Alternative methods of controlling interactions
Startus and Failover Policies
Startup rules and policies
Failover rules and policies
Configuring startup and failover policies
Multiple Network Interfaces
MultiNIC configurations
MultiNICB
IPMultiNICB
Example MultiNIC setup
Datacentre Availability
Cluster management console
Storage foundation management server
Disaster recovery