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, part of VRTSvxfen package, when you install Veritas InfoScale Enterprise. To protect data on shared disks, you must configure I/O fencing after you install Veritas InfoScale Enterprise and configure SFCFSHA.
I/O fencing modes - disk-based and server-based I/O fencing - use coordination points for arbitration in the event of a network partition. Whereas, majority-based I/O fencing mode does not use coordination points for arbitration. With majority-based I/O fencing you may experience loss of high availability in some cases. You can configure disk-based, server-based, or majority-based I/O fencing:
See About preventing data corruption with I/O fencing.
Note: |
Symantec Corporation recommends that you use I/O fencing to protect your cluster against split-brain situations. |
See the Storage Foundation Cluster File System High Availability Configuration and Upgrade Guide.