Administering application monitoring settings


Administering application monitoring settings
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The ApplicationHA Health View provides a set of options that you can use to control the way Symantec ApplicationHA handles application monitoring, application and dependent component faults, and application recovery on the virtual machine. These configuration settings are applicable on a per virtual machine basis. The settings apply to all the applications that Symantec ApplicationHA monitors on the virtual machine.

The following settings are available:

App.RestartAttempts

This option defines the number of times Symantec ApplicationHA should try to restart a failed application or its dependent component. If an application fails to start in the specified number of attempts, Symantec ApplicationHA sends the "Applications Critical" status to the Hyper-V host.

AppRestartAttempts value can vary between 1 and 6. The default is 1.
App.ShutdownGraceTime

This option defines the number of seconds Symantec ApplicationHA should wait before communicating the "Applications Critical" status to the Hyper-V host.

If a configured application or its dependent component fails, Symantec ApplicationHA tries to restart the component for the configured number of times. If the component fails to start, Symantec ApplicationHA sends an "Applications Critical" status to Hyper-V host. Hyper-V host may then restart the virtual machine depending on the configuration settings.

An abrupt shutdown may affect the other healthy application components running on the machine. If those components require more time to stop, Symantec ApplicationHA may not be able to stop them gracefully in time before the reboot is initiated. For such cases, you can use AppShutdownGraceTime to delay the virtual machine reboot so that Symantec ApplicationHA stops all the application components gracefully.

Whenan application fails to start, Symantec ApplicationHA initiates a graceful shutdown of all the healthy applications being monitored on the virtual machine and waits for time specified in this option. A virtual machine reboot takes place only after all the application components are shut down gracefully or at the end of the grace time, whichever is earlier.

This setting is applicable to the heartbeat service group that is created when you configure application monitoring using the Symantec ApplicationHA Configuration Wizard. Internally, it sets the DelayBeforeAppFault attribute of the Heartbeat agent resource (VMWAppMonHB) in the configuration. AppShutDownGraceTime value can vary between 0 and 600. The default is 300 seconds.
App.StartStopTimeout

When you click the Start Application or Stop Application links in the ApplicationHA view, Symantec ApplicationHA initiates an orderly start or stop of the application and its dependent components. This option defines the number of seconds Symantec ApplicationHA must wait for the application to start or stop. If the application does not respond in the stipulated time, an error is displayed in the ApplicationHA Health View.

A delay in the application response does not indicate that the application or its dependent component has faulted. Parameters such as workload, system performance, and network bandwidth may affect the application response. Symantec ApplicationHA continues to wait for the application response even after the timeout interval is over. If the application fails to start or stop,

ApplicationHA takes the necessary action depending on the other configuration settings.

AppStartStopTimeout value can vary between 0 and 600. The default is 30 seconds.

VM.GracefulRebootPolicy

Use this option to enable or disable ApplicationHA-initiated virtual machine restart policy. This option defines whether or not ApplicationHA restarts the virtual machine in response to application and component failures. When a configured application or component fails, ApplicationHA attempts to restart the failed components. If the component fails to start, ApplicationHA then takes no action.

If this policy is disabled, and an application or component fails, then ApplicationHA sends an "Applications Critical" status to the Hyper-V host. Hyper-V host may then restart the virtual machine depending on the configuration settings.

Note:

ApplicationHA sends the "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host, only if the Hyper-V host runs Windows Server 2012 operating system (OS).

To enable ApplicationHA to send the "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host running Windows Server 2008 R2 OS, you must upgrade the Windows Integration Services. If you do not upgrade the Windows Integration Services, ApplicationHA is unable to send the "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host.

Refer to the compatibility matrix below.

Hyper-V host OS	Guest virtual machine OS	ApplicationHA behaviour if VM.GracefulRebootPolicy is 0
Windows Server 2012	Windows Server 2012	Sends an "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host.
Windows Server 2012	Windows Server 2008 R2	Requires you to upgrade the Windows Integration Service. If you do not upgrade this service, then ApplicationHA fails to send an "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host.
Windows Server 2008 R2	Windows Server 2008 R2	Does not send an "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host. You must enable ApplicationHA-initiated virtual machine restart if both, the Hyper-V host and the hosted virtual machines have Windows Server 2008 R2 OS.

Hyper-V host OS

Guest virtual machine OS

ApplicationHA behaviour if VM.GracefulRebootPolicy is 0

Windows Server 2012

Sends an "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host.

Windows Server 2012

Windows Server 2008 R2

Requires you to upgrade the Windows Integration Service. If you do not upgrade this service, then ApplicationHA fails to send an "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host.

Windows Server 2008 R2

Does not send an "Applications Critical" heartbeat to the Hyper-V host.

You must enable ApplicationHA-initiated virtual machine restart if both, the Hyper-V host and the hosted virtual machines have Windows Server 2008 R2 OS.

If this policy is enabled, ApplicationHA itself invokes a native operating system command to restart the virtual machine.

VM.GracefulRebootPolicy value can be Enabled (1) or Disabled (0). The default value is Disabled.

VM.GracefulRebootAttempts

This option defines the number of times ApplicationHA attempts to restart the virtual machine gracefully if the configured application or component becomes unresponsive. The number of restart attempts is time bound and is defined by the option VM.GracefulRebootTimeSpan. The restart attempts count is reset after the reboot time span elapses.

For example, if the reboot attempts value is 4, the time span value is 1 hour, and ApplicationHA has restarted the virtual machine once, then the restart attempt count is 3 (initial set value of 4 minus one reboot) for the remaining period of the 1-hour interval. The restart attempts count is reset to 4 at the beginning of the next 60-minute span.

If the restart attempts are exhausted and the application or component fails within the reboot time span again then ApplicationHA does not take any action.

VM.GracefulRebootAttempts value can vary between 1 and 10. The default value is 1.
VM.GracefulRebootTimeSpan

This option defines the time interval, in hours, during which ApplicationHA can gracefully restart the virtual machine for the number of times defined by the option VM.GracefulRebootAttempts.

VM.GracefulRebootTimeSpan value can vary between 1 and 24. The default value is 1 hour.

To modify the application monitoring configuration settings

Launch the ApplicationHA Health View.
Use the following URL to launch the Health View:

https://VMNameorIP:5634/vcs/admin/ application_health.html?priv=ADMIN
Click the Settings link to display the Settings dialog box.
Specify the values for the available options displayed in the Settings box and then click OK.
The specified values are updated in the configuration and they take effect immediately.

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