Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions 7.4.1 HA and DR Solutions Guide for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 - Windows

Last Published:
Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (7.4.1)
Platform: Windows
  1. Introducing Storage Foundation and High Availability Solutions for SharePoint 2010
    1.  
      About clustering solutions with SFW HA
    2.  
      About high availability
    3.  
      How a high availability solution works
    4.  
      About replication
    5.  
      About disaster recovery
    6.  
      What you can do with a disaster recovery solution
    7.  
      Typical disaster recovery configuration
    8. About high availability support for SharePoint Server
      1.  
        About disaster recovery support for SharePoint Server
      2.  
        Before you begin configuring quick recovery for SharePoint Server 2010
      3.  
        About quick recovery support for SharePoint Server
    9.  
      About the SharePoint Search service application
  2. Introducing the VCS agent for SharePoint Server 2010
    1.  
      About the VCS agent for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
    2.  
      SharePoint Server agent functions
    3.  
      SharePoint Server agent state definitions
    4.  
      SharePoint Server agent resource type definition
    5.  
      SharePoint Server agent attribute definitions
  3. Configuration workflows for SharePoint Server 2010
    1. Reviewing the HA configuration
      1.  
        Sample SharePoint Server HA configuration
      2.  
        Following the HA workflow in the Solutions Configuration Center
    2.  
      Reviewing the disaster recovery configuration
    3.  
      High availability (HA) configuration
    4.  
      Disaster recovery configuration
    5. Notes and recommendations for cluster and application configuration
      1.  
        IPv6 support
    6.  
      Configuring the storage hardware and network
    7. Configuring the cluster using the Cluster Configuration Wizard
      1.  
        Configuring notification
      2.  
        Adding nodes to a cluster
  4. Using the Solutions Configuration Center
    1.  
      About the Solutions Configuration Center
    2.  
      Starting the Solutions Configuration Center
    3.  
      Options in the Solutions Configuration Center
    4.  
      About launching wizards from the Solutions Configuration Center
    5.  
      Remote and local access to Solutions wizards
    6.  
      Solutions wizards and logs
    7.  
      Workflows in the Solutions Configuration Center
  5. Installing and configuring SharePoint Server 2010 for high availability
    1.  
      About installing and configuring SharePoint
    2.  
      Configuring 64-bit Perl for SharePoint
    3. About configuring SharePoint service groups
      1.  
        Before you configure a SharePoint service group
      2.  
        Creating a SharePoint service group
      3.  
        About service groups for SharePoint Search
    4.  
      Verifying the SharePoint cluster configuration
    5.  
      Considerations when modifying a SharePoint service group
  6. Configuring disaster recovery for SharePoint Server 2010
    1.  
      Tasks for configuring disaster recovery for SharePoint Server
    2. Configuring the SQL Server service group for DR in the SharePoint environment
      1.  
        Updating the SQL Server IP address
      2. Updating the IP address for web requests
        1.  
          Requirements
        2.  
          Customizing the DNS update settings for the web servers
        3.  
          Configuring a resource for the web servers
    3. Configuring the secondary site for SharePoint disaster recovery
      1.  
        Installing InfoScale Enterprise and configuring the cluster on the secondary site
      2.  
        About installing the SharePoint servers on the secondary site
      3.  
        About configuring the SharePoint service groups on the secondary site
      4.  
        Verifying the service group configuration
  7. Introducing the VCS agent for SharePoint Search Service Application
    1. About the VCS agent for SharePoint Search service application
      1.  
        How the VCS agent makes SharePoint Search service application highly available
      2.  
        VCS agent for SharePoint Search service application - functions
      3.  
        VCS agent for SharePoint Search service application - state definitions
      4.  
        Resource type definition
      5.  
        Attribute definitions
      6.  
        Sample configuration file
    2. Configuring the SharePoint Search Service Application service group
      1.  
        Prerequisites for configuring a service group for a SharePoint Search service application
      2.  
        Installing and configuring SharePoint Server 2010
      3.  
        Changing the index location of the Crawl and Query components
      4.  
        Configuring a service group for a SharePoint Search service application manually
      5.  
        Configuring the service group for a Search service application using the wizard
      6. Verifying the application service group
        1.  
          Bringing the service group online
        2.  
          Taking the service group offline
        3.  
          Switching the service group
        4.  
          Disabling the service group
      7.  
        Configuring a Search service application for disaster recovery
    3. Administering the SharePoint Search Service Application service group
      1.  
        About administering the application service group
      2.  
        Modifying the application service group
      3.  
        Deleting the application service group
  8. Troubleshooting
    1.  
      About troubleshooting VCS agents
    2. Troubleshooting issues with SharePoint Search service application components
      1.  
        Restoring the Crawl or Query component registry keys
    3. VCS logging
      1.  
        VCS Cluster Configuration Wizard (VCW) logs
    4. Agent error messages and descriptions
      1.  
        VCS agent for SharePoint Search service application
  9. Appendix A. Using Veritas AppProtect for vSphere
    1.  
      About Just In Time Availability
    2.  
      Prerequisites
    3.  
      Setting up a plan
    4.  
      Deleting a plan
    5.  
      Managing a plan
    6.  
      Viewing the history tab
    7.  
      Limitations of Just In Time Availability
    8.  
      Getting started with Just In Time Availability
    9.  
      Supported operating systems and configurations
    10.  
      Viewing the properties
    11.  
      Log files
    12.  
      Plan states
    13.  
      Troubleshooting Just In Time Availability

About Just In Time Availability

The Just In Time Availability solution provides increased availability to the applications on a single node InfoScale Availability cluster in VMware virtual environments.

Using the Just In Time Availability solution, you can create plans for:

  • Planned Maintenance

  • Unplanned Recovery

Planned Maintenance

In the event of planned maintenance, the Just In Time Availability solution enables you to clone a virtual machine, bring it online, and fail over the applications running on that virtual machine to the clone on the same ESX host. After the maintenance procedure is complete, you can fail back the applications to the original virtual machine. Besides failover and failback operations, you can delete a virtual machine clone, view the properties of the virtual machine and its clone, and so on.

Unplanned Recovery

When an application encounters an unexpected or unplanned failure on the original or primary virtual machine on the primary ESX host, the Just In Time Availability solution enables you to recover the application and bring it online using the unplanned recovery feature.

With Unplanned Recovery Policies, the Just In Time Availability solution enables you to set up recovery policies to mitigate unplanned failures that are encountered by an application. Just In Time Availability solution provides the following recovery policies; you may select one or all the recovery policies as per your need:

Unplanned Recovery Policies

Description

Restart Application

Just In Time Availability (JIT) solution attempts to restart the service group (SG), and bring the application online on the original virtual machine on primary ESX.

Maximum three retry attempts are permitted under this policy.

Note:

If all the three attempts fail, application continues to remain in faulted state or continues with the next policy as selected while creating a plan.

Restart virtual machine (VM)

Just In Time Availability (JIT) solution performs the following subsequent tasks:

  • take the service group offline

  • shut down the virtual machine

  • power on the virtual machine

  • bring the service group online on the original virtual machine on primary ESX

You are provided with Last attempt will be VM reset option to reset the virtual machine.

By default, this checkbox is selected and the default retry attempt value is one. If you retain the default settings, then VM reset operation is performed on the virtual machine at the first attempt itself.

Maximum three retry attempts are permitted for this operation.

If you deselect the checkbox, then the virtual machine reset (VM Reset) operation is not performed.

Restart VM on target ESX

Using this policy, you can recover the faulted application on the virtual machine.

In this policy, the original virtual machine is unregistered from the primary ESX; registered on the target ESX; and the faulted application is brought online on the target ESX.

Restore VM on target ESX

Using this policy, you can recover the faulted application on the virtual machine using a boot disk backup copy of the original virtual machine.

In this policy, the original virtual machine is unregistered from the ESX and the boot disk backup copy of the original virtual machine is registered on target ESX. The faulted application is then brought online on the virtual machine.

Unplanned Failback

The Unplanned Failback operation lets you fail back the application from the boot disk backup copy of virtual machine on the target ESX to the original virtual machine on primary ESX.

If you have selected either Restart VM on target ESX or Restore VM on target ESX or both the recovery policies, you can perform the Unplanned Failback operation.

On the Plans tab, in the plans table list, right-click the virtual machine and click Unplanned Failback.

Note:

Unplanned Failback operation operation is disabled and not available for the plans and the virtual machines which have Restart Application and Restart VM policies as the only selected options.

Based on the selected recovery policy for a plan, Just In Time Availability (JIT) solution performs the necessary operations in the sequential order.

For example, if you have selected Restart Application and Restart VM as the recovery policy, then in the event of unplanned application failure, first it performs tasks for Restart Application policy and if that fails, it moves to the next policy.

You may select one or all the recovery policies based on your requirement.

Table: Tasks performed for each Unplanned Recovery policy lists the sequence of tasks that are performed for each Unplanned Recovery policy.

Table: Tasks performed for each Unplanned Recovery policy

Unplanned Recovery Policy

Tasks Performed

Restart Application

  • Make an attempt to restart the application.

Restart virtual machine (VM)

  1. Takes the service group(s) offline

  2. Shuts down the virtual machine

  3. Power on the virtual machine

  4. Brings the service group(s) online

Restart VM on target ESX

  1. Takes the service group(s) offline

  2. Shuts down the original virtual machine

  3. Detaches the data disks from the original virtual machine

  4. Unregisters the virtual machine from the primary ESX

  5. Registers the original virtual machine on target ESX

  6. Attaches the data disks back to the virtual machine

  7. Power on the virtual machine

  8. Brings the service group(s) online

Restore VM on target ESX

  1. Takes the service group(s) offline

  2. Shuts down the virtual machine

  3. Detaches the data disks from the virtual machine

  4. Unregisters the original virtual machine from the target ESX

  5. Registers the boot disk backup copy of the original virtual machine to the target ESX

  6. Attaches the data disks back to the virtual machine

  7. Power on the virtual machine

  8. Brings the service group(s) online

Unplanned Failback

  1. Takes the service group(s) offline

  2. Shuts down the virtual machine

  3. Detaches the data disks from the virtual machine

  4. Unregisters the virtual machine from the target ESX

  5. Registers the virtual machine using the original boot disk backup copy to the primary ESX

  6. Attaches the data disks to the virtual machine

  7. Power on the virtual machine on primary ESX

  8. Brings the service group(s) online on the virtual machine

Scheduler Settings

While creating a plan for unplanned recovery, with Scheduler Settings, you can set up a schedule for taking a back up of boot disk of all the virtual machines that are a part of the plan.

To use the Just In Time Availability solution, go to vSphere Web Client > Home view > Veritas AppProtect.

See Setting up a plan.