About I/O fencing


About I/O fencing
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I/O fencing protects the data on shared disks when nodes in a cluster detect a change in the cluster membership that indicates a split-brain condition.

The fencing operation determines the following:

The nodes that must retain access to the shared storage
The nodes that must be ejected from the cluster

This decision prevents possible data corruption. The installer installs the I/O fencing driver, VRTSvxfen, when you install Storage Foundation Cluster File System HA. To protect data on shared disks, you must configure I/O fencing after you install and configure Storage Foundation Cluster File System HA.

I/O fencing technology uses coordination points for arbitration in the event of a network partition.

You can configure I/O fencing to use one or both of the following components as coordination points:

Coordinator disk

I/O fencing that uses coordinator disks is referred to as disk-based I/O fencing.

Disk-based I/O fencing ensures data integrity in a single cluster.

Coordination point server (CP server)

I/O fencing that uses at least one CP server system is referred to as server-based I/O fencing.

Server-based I/O fencing ensures data integrity in multiple clusters.

In virtualized environments that do not support SCSI-3 PR, Storage Foundation Cluster File System HA supports non-SCSI3 server-based I/O fencing.

See About I/O fencing for Storage Foundation Cluster File System HA in virtual machines that do not support SCSI-3 PR.

Note:

Symantec recommends that you use I/O fencing to protect your cluster against split-brain situations.

See the Storage Foundation Cluster File System Installation Guide.

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