Enabling fast failover for disk groups in a Microsoft Failover Clustering environment


Enabling fast failover for disk groups in a Microsoft Failover Clustering environment
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Enabling fast failover for SFW disk groups in a Microsoft Failover Clustering environment involves the following tasks:

Configuring SFW fast failover support using the SFW Configuration Wizard for Microsoft Failover Cluster
Enabling FastFailover attribute for SFW VMDg resources

To support the fast failover feature, a new attribute, FastFailOver, is added to the Volume Manager Disk Group (VMDg) resource. This attribute decides whether or not a disk group is enabled for fast failover. The FastFailOver attribute can take values of True or False. The value True indicates that the agent enables fast failover for the configured disk group. The default value False indicates that fast failover is disabled for the disk group.

Note:

Apart from configuring SFW fast failover support for Microsoft Failover Clustering, the SFW Configuration Wizard for Microsoft Failover Cluster also prepares a cluster for Cluster Volume Manager (CVM) support. Therefore, it can also be used for configuring CVM in a Microsoft Failover Clustering environment.

Note:

The disk group version must be 60 or later for fast failover to work. To verify the disk group version, from the VEA console, right-click the disk group and click Properties. Disk group upgrade is required if you have upgraded SFW HA on the cluster nodes. Refer to the Veritas InfoScale Installation and Upgrade Guide for more information.

Using the SFW Configuration Wizard for Microsoft Failover Cluster to configure fast failover

From the Start menu (the Start screen on Windows 2012 operating systems), type Run, and then press Enter to open the Run dialog box.
In the Run dialog box, type scc, and then click OK to launch the Solutions Configuration Center (SCC).
From the Solutions view in the SCC, click on SFW Configuration Wizard for Microsoft Failover Cluster to launch the wizard.

The SFW Configuration Wizard for Microsoft Failover Cluster panel displays cluster and system (node) information and lets you configure or unconfigure systems for fast failover as described below.

Fields	Description
Cluster Name	The automatically-assigned name for the cluster configuration. This name is the same as that of the Microsoft failover cluster.
System Name	This table lists all the systems (nodes) that can participate in the cluster. Select the required cluster nodes that you want to configure for fast failover.
Configuration Status	The following configuration statuses are displayed: Configured: The node is configured in the cluster. Not Configured: The node is not configured in the cluster. Invalid Configuration: There are configuration issues with the node. Not Supported: Unsupported configuration. This is displayed if you don't select the Microsoft Failover Cluster option during the product installation.
Configuration Status Details	Displays the configuration status information for the selected systems.

Select one or more systems that are not yet configured and click Configure to configure fast failover support for the selected systems.

To unconfigure fast failover support, select one or more configured systems and click Unconfigure to unconfigure fast failover support for the selected systems.

Click Done to exit the wizard.

To enable fast failover for SFW VMDg resources

From the Start menu (the Start screen on Windows 2012 operating systems), click Administrative Tools.
Launch the Failover Cluster Manager snap-in by clicking Failover Cluster Manager.
Right-click Services and Applications. Select More Actions > Create Empty Service or Application. This creates a service group, for example, SG1.
Right-click the new service group and select Add a Resource > More Resources > Add a Volume Manager Disk Group from the context menu.
A new Volume Manager Disk Group (VMDg) resource is created with a default name.
Right-click the VMDg resource and select Properties.
Complete the following on the Properties window:
- Select the General tab to change the default name of the New Volume Manager Disk Group to a name of your choice. Say, for example: VMDg1
- Now select the Properties tab and perform the following steps:
  - In the DiskGroupName box enter the dynamic cluster disk group name created earlier in this document. Say, for example GuestDG1.
  - Edit the FastFailOver attribute value to TRUE.
    
    Displayed default value is FALSE.
Note:

To enable live migration, you must set the FastFailOver attribute to TRUE for all VMDg resources in a cluster.
Right-click the VMDg resource and select Bring this resource online option from the center pane of the Failover Cluster Manager snap-in.