Configure a High Availability System on Windows

Follow these steps to configure a High Availability (HA) system on Windows:

  1. Install StorNext if not already installed (see Install the StorNext File System on a Windows MDC: Interactively).
  2. Obtain and install StorNext licenses, which must include at least Maintenance, Server and Failover licenses for both MDCs (see Obtain and Install StorNext Licenses – GUI-based Appliances and Customer-supplied MDCs).
  3. If this is an existing configuration with clients, it is recommended that you stop StorNext services on all StorNext clients to avoid the clients hanging (see Configure a StorNext File System on Windows).
  4. Verify that configuration files are correct and identical on both MDCs.
    1. The *.cfg files should be identical on both computers.
    2. The fsnameservers files should be identical on both computers.
    3. The fsmlist files should be identical on both computers.
    4. If the optional ha_smith_interval file is configured, it must be identical on both computers (for more details, see High Availability Systems).
    5. Copy and paste the *.cfg files and fsmlist files from the primary MDC to the secondary MDC before proceeding to Step 5.
  5. Create the ha_peer file in the configuration directory of each MDC (C:\Program Files\StorNext\config\ha_peer). The ha_peer file on each MDC must contain the numerical IP address of its redundant-peer MDC, which enables intra-MDC communication for HA functionality.

  6. Enable High Availability (HA) on both redundant-peer MDCs by doing the following:

    Caution: If you do not perform these steps on both MDCs your metadata could become corrupted.

    1. After installing StorNext, on each MDC run Start > All Programs > StorNext > File System Cfg (Advanced). The File System Configuration window displays.

    2. On the Tools menu, click HA Configuration.
    3. Click Enable High Availability (HA). Note that you cannot enable HA if there are no file systems configured.

  7. High Availability is now configured. You may now test the HA reset functionality by running the following command on either MDC:

    cvadmin -e "hamon smith"

    The MDC will immediately reboot. Clients for any StorNext file systems that were being served by active FSMs on the reset MDC will trigger elections that will result in the activations of corresponding FSMs on the redundant HA MDC. This can be observed by running the following command on the redundant MDC both before and after resetting its peer MDC:

    cvadmin –e "select"

  8. Restart services on any clients that you stopped earlier (see Configure a StorNext File System on Windows).

    Note: Restarting StorNext faster than once per three minutes can trigger a startup delay of three minutes. The delay slows down looping HA resets so that an administrator can correct any configuration problems that are causing the resets.