Application Note: Failover with Double- Take Availability and the Scale HC3 Cluster. Version 2.0

Transcription

1 Application Note: Failover with Double- Take Availability and the Scale HC3 Cluster Version 2.0

2 Table of Contents Introduction... 2 About Double-Take Availability... 2 About Scale Computing s HC3 Cluster... 2 Preparation and Software Requirements for this Application Note... 2 Equipment Requirements for this Application Note... 2 Prepare the Source Machine and VM for Transfer... 3 Install and Activate Double-Take Move for Your Source Machine and VM... 4 Transfer Your Source Machine to Your Target VM... 4 Transfer Your Source Machine to Your Target VM... 5 Resources... 6 Provide Feedback or Contact Support... 6 Disclaimer

3 Introduction This application note describes how to use Double-Take Availability and a Scale HC3 cluster to perform failover from an existing physical or virtual machine (VM) directly onto the HC3. The material provided here is for advanced users, and assumes you are migrating a Windows machine. NOTE: This walkthrough provides instructions for moving to a VM with Windows 2008 R2 installed on it. You can use different Windows operating systems, but be aware that the instructions for conducting the transfer may differ somewhat. The transfer may be conducted with a source machine that is physical or virtual. About Double-Take Availability Double-Take Availability allows you to maintain high availability and perform disaster recovery for physical and virtual servers on Windows. The product allows you to protect your data and provides fault tolerance as well as immediate recovery from a system outage through the use of a unified console. Double-Take Availability offers continuous data replication over any distance, helping to ensure that you always have access to a current copy of your data, applications, and operating system. About Scale Computing s HC3 Cluster Scale s HC3 cluster combines the benefits of server virtualization and shared storage into a converged IT infrastructure platform where virtualized workloads have direct access to a distributed, scalable pool of shared storage and compute resources. The cluster eliminates complex virtualization and storage architectures for greater cost savings and improved management efficiency. Preparation and Software Requirements for this Application Note Prior to using Double-Take Availability for a failover you should prepare in the following way: Meet all of Double-Take Availability s requirements for use with your source and target machines. For more information, refer to the product user guide. Ensure all machines involved in the failover have been given machine names you can use to reference them. Know how to create a virtual machine (VM). Instructions for creating a VM are provided in the Scale Computing User Guide. Be familiar with the Virtualization tab in the Scale Cluster Manager. You should know how to start a VM and launch a console window. Join the source machine and the target VM to the same domain. Equipment Requirements for this Application Note Prior to using Double-Take Availability for a failover you should meet the following requirements: Have a configured HC3 cluster available for use. Have a virtual or physical machine for conducting a failover to the HC3 cluster. Have a VM set up on your HC3 cluster with Windows installed on it. In the case of this walkthrough, Windows 2008 R2 is used. Have a mouse with two buttons available because on some Macs, right click cannot always be mimicked on VM consoles with a Mac mouse. Have a managing server for managing the machines involved in the failover. 2

4 Have at least one source and target machine license from Double-Take Availability. If you plan to move multiple machines to the HC3 cluster, be sure you have the appropriate license for each machine. Prepare the Source Machine and VM for Transfer To begin the process of transferring from your source machine to the HC3 cluster, take the following steps: 1. Download Double-Take Console from Vision Solutions ( Avail.aspx). Instructions for obtaining login credentials and licensing for the product are provided on the website. 2. Install Double-Take Console on the machine you want to use to manage transfers. You can use the source machine if you like, however after failover from this machine, it will shut down. It is recommended that you use another machine to manage the transfer. This document will refer to the machine managing the transfer as the managing server. 3. On your managing server, click Start. The Start menu opens. 4. From the list of choices provided, click Double-Take Console. The product opens on the Home screen. 5. From the list of choices across the top of the Home screen, click Manage Servers. The Manage Servers screen appears. 6. From the list of icons, click the Add Server icon (the icon furthest to the left). The Add Server screen appears. 7. Click the Automatic Discovery tab. 8. Click Discover. The Double-Take Console tries to discover servers for you. If your machines are properly joined to the same domain (they should be for this process), the Double-Take Console discovers the machines for you. 9. If a list of servers is returned, remove the machines you do not want added. Do this by highlighting the unwanted machines. 10. Click Remove. The Double-Take Console removes the unwanted machines. NOTE: If you do not see any machines returned, you can use the Manual Entry tab to add machines. It is recommended that you use the Automatic Discovery tab if possible, since when this tab works it is an indication you have joined your machines to the same domain correctly. 11. When both machines appear in the Servers to be added panel, click OK. You are returned to the Manage Servers screen. You are now ready to activate Double-Take Availability for each machine. 3

5 Install and Activate Double-Take Move for Your Source Machine and VM Depending on your licensing arrangement, you can activate multiple machines at once, or individually. This walkthrough shows you how to activate your source and target machine individually. To activate Double-Take Move on both machines, take the following steps: 1. In the Double-Take Console, on the Manage Servers screen, highlight the source machine you want to install Double-Take Availability on. 2. From the toolbar at the top of the screen, click the Install button. (The Install button is the sixth button from the left and has a small white + with a green circle around it.) 3. Click Set Activation codes. 4. Enter the license information and click OK. 5. It is recommended that you use the suggested settings provided for Default Installation Options. If you do want to alter the settings, click Default Installation options to review and adjust. 6. Click Installation Schedule. 7. Choose the installation schedule that suits your needs. For the purpose of this walkthrough, click Install now. 8. Click Install. Double-Take Availability begins installing on your source machine. 9. Repeat steps 1-8 on your target machine. You have now successfully installed Double-Take Availability and activated your source and target machines. You are ready to begin the transfer. Transfer Your Source Machine to Your Target VM On your managing server, in the Double-Take-Console, take the following steps to transfer your source machine to your target VM: 1. Open the Double-Take Console. 2. In the toolbar at the top of the screen, click Get Started. The Get Started screen appears. 3. Double-click Double-Take Availability. The Double-Take Availability screen opens. 4. Click Protect files and folders, an application, or an entire Windows server. 5. Click Next. The Choose Source Server screen appears. 4

6 6. Select the server whose data that you want to protect. 7. Click Next. The Choose Data screen appears. 8. Select Full Server. 9. Click Next. The Choose Target Server screen appears. 10. Choose the server that will store the protected data. 11. Click Next. The Set Options screen appears. NOTE: If you are using DHCP, you may get a warning saying you do not have a static IP address available for your source or target machine. If you want to use Double-Take Availability to set up failover with reverse failover enabled, you must assign each machine a static IP address, or use the computer name for each machine. For this walkthrough, you do not need to be able to go in reverse. 12. Scroll down to the Reverse Protection section and choose Disable reverse protection. 13. If you want to change any of the settings you can. Scale recommends using the default settings. Click Next. The Summary screen appears. 14. Review the list. You may see a warning for reverse protection and assigning a DHCP address to the target route. You can ignore these for this walkthrough. Again, if you want to be able to switch between machines, you will want to set preferences. Be aware that if you do want to be able to go back and forth between machines, you need enough space on each machine to restore the entire machine, plus maintain whatever was on the machine to begin with. Click Finish. The job starts. Transfer Your Source Machine to Your Target VM This section describes how to kick off the failover process that will migrate all the data on your source machine to your target VM. Take the following steps: 1. On the Manage Jobs screen, right click the job to open the context menu. 2. Click Failover or Cutover. The source machine will failover to the target VM. NOTE: Because you did not enable reverse protection, the failover is one way. Be sure you want to make the transfer before starting it. After the source machine fails over to the target VM, it will shutdown so you do not have overlapping addresses. You have successfully migrated your source machine to your VM. 5

7 Resources Scale strongly recommends reviewing Double-Take s product documentation. It provides details about requirements for failover, as well as instructions for using Double-Take products. Provide Feedback or Contact Support If you have comments or suggestions regarding this document or other Scale Computing documentation, you can send them to documentation@scalecomputing.com. If you need help, call SCALE-59 ( ), and someone from the Scale Computing Technical Support Team will be happy to help you. You can also Scale Computing Technical Support at support@scalecomputing.com or find them on the web at If you are in Europe, you can contact the UK based Scale Computing Technical Support Team here: Disclaimer This document is meant to filter the information in the open source community around Vision Solutions Double-Take as it relates to the Scale Computing HC3 product. Double-Take is not a product of Scale Computing and is not covered under the support and warranty for the HC3 cluster. Scale Computing is not responsible for, and expressly disclaims all liability for, any issues or damages of any kind arising out of use of Double-Take. 6