SIOS SANless clusters High-availability Machine Learning monitoring
This brief video is the first in a series of application availability “how to” tutorials designed by the SIOS support team. It walks through the simple steps needed to get started with your SIOS Protection Suite or SIOS DataKeeper software. Learn how to access a wide range of support resources in the SIOS documentation library.
Reproduced with permission from SIOS
Nice job “Random Co-worker”! And by nice job, I didn’t really mean nice job. And by “Random Coworker” I mean the guy who checked the box that shouldn’t be checked, or unchecked the box that should be checked, the man or woman who skipped the message and the warning, and the “Please confirm” safety measures and just wrecked your SIOS Protection Suite for Linux configuration.
We’ve all been there. It was an accident. However it happened, it happened. Suddenly you are scrambling to figure out what to do to recover the configuration, the data, and the “whatever” before the boss finds out.
As the VP of Customer Experience at SIOS Technology Corp. our teams are actively working with partners and customers to architect and implement enterprise availability to protect their systems from downtime. Accidents happen, and a recent customer experience reminded me that even with our multiple checks and warnings, even the SIOS Protection Suite for Linux product isn’t immune to accidental configuration changes, but there is a simple tip for faster recovery from the “Random Coworker’s” accidental blunder.
Native to the SIOS Protection Suite for Linux (SPS-L) is a tool called lkbackup, located under /opt/LifeKeeper/bin/lkbackup. The tool, as the name might suggest, creates a backup of the SPS-L configuration details. Note: This tool does not backup all of the application data, but it does create a backup of all the data for the SPS-L configuration such as: resource definitions, tunables configured in the /etc/default/LifeKeeper file, customer created generic application scripts, flags associated with the state of the cluster, communication path/cluster definitions, and more.
[root@baymax ~ ] # /opt/LifeKeeper/bin/lkbackup -c -f /root/mylkbackup-5.15.2020-v9.4.1 –cluster –ssh
Example: : lkbackup create syntax
This creates a backup file named mylkbackup-5.15.2020-v9.4.1 under the /root folder. The –cluster tells lkbackup to create the same file on each cluster node. The –ssh uses ssh protocol to connect to each cluster node. Additional lkbackup details are here:
Our Customer Experience Services Team recommends taking a backup before making SPS-L configuration changes, such as upgrades, resource removal or addition, or configuration changes.
So when you need to restore the SPS-L configuration, the change is as simple as running lkbackup again.
[root@baymax ~ ] # /opt/LifeKeeper/bin/lkbackup -x -f /root/mylkbackup-5.15.2020-v9.4.1 –cluster –ssh
Example: lkbackup restore syntax
But, what do you do if you forgot to run lkbackup to create this file before your “Random Coworker” blundered away hours of SPS-L setup and configuration? What do you do if the “Guy” or “Gal” who set up SPS-L is on vacation, paternity or maternity leave? What if you are the “Random Coworker” and Steve from the Basis Team is heading down the hallway to see how things are going? For most installations, SIOS enables an autobackup feature during the installation. This autobackup feature will automatically capture a lkbackup file for you at 3am local time, under /opt/LifeKeeper/config/auto-backup.#.tgz
[root@baymax ~]# ls -ltr /opt/LifeKeeper/config/auto-backup.*
Example. Output from config/auto-backup listing
If your system has been installed and configured properly, the autobackups have been running each night, ready to cover you when your “Random Coworker” strikes. Find the SPS-L auto-backup.#.tgz before the blunder, and using the SPS-L lkbackup tool, retrieve and restore your SIOS Protection Suite for Linux Configuration to the previously configured state.
[root@baymax ~ ] # lkstop; /opt/LifeKeeper/bin/lkbackup -c -f /opt/LifeKeeper/config/auto-backup.0.tgz
Example: lkbackup restore syntax for auto-backup
Repeat this on the other nodes in the cluster as required.
Note. If your system doesn’t appear to be configured to generate the auto-backup files and protect you from your own “Random Coworker”, SIOS offers installation and configuration services, and configuration health checks performed by a SIOS Professional Services Engineer.
— Cassius Rhue, VP, Customer Experience
Reproduced with permission from SIOS
We are proud to announce the availability of SIOS Protection Suite for Linux version 9.5. This product introduces advanced automation and application-aware monitoring making it the most comprehensive, out-of-the-box SAP S/4HANA clustering software in the industry.
We know what a hassle it is to try to manually build an SAP S/4HANA cluster, making sure that all of the HANA services will failover to the right locations and start up in the right order. Hours of scripting, testing, and aggravation. And the stakes are high. Getting it wrong can mean failover doesn’t happen or worse – downtime, data loss, lots of aggravated users calling.
That’s why we added intelligent application availability for two-node SAP S/4HANA database configurations that are using HANA System replication (HSR). We’ve built this release to take the hassle and risk out of building and managing a cluster.
Starting from easy, wizard-driven configuration that actually validates your input. No hours of manual scripting… or searching for a mistaken keystroke when things don’t go right.
It monitors all the processes in the HANA stack from the application to the hardware, servers, and network – not just checking that the server is operational like other clustering software.
And unlike other clustering solutions that trigger a failover for everything, if SIOS Protection Suite detects an issue, it automatically takes the appropriate recovery action – whether that’s simply restarting a service, recovering on the node that is in service or orchestrating a failover to a secondary node.
Speaking of failover orchestration, it will automatically ensure that SAP-specific best practices are maintained throughout. For example, it makes sure that on failover or switchover, ASCS is never on a server with the primary application or on the same server with the ERS.
If the wizard-driven configuration isn’t easy enough, we also added a new command-line interface (CLI) cloning feature that lets you deploy a SIOS cluster simply by importing the CLI instructions for configuration. You can also export the CLI instructions of an existing cluster to create a clone of it.
Now with SIOS Protection Suite for Linux, you can create a high availability cluster quickly and easily to protect any application. This includes SQL Server, Oracle, SAP and S/4HANA, from downtime and disasters.
Reproduced with permission from SIOS
SIOS is pleased to announce the release of version 8.7.1 of our SIOS Protection Suite-Windows and DataKeeper Cluster Edition-Windows products. The new release broadens support and adds new features to meet our customers’ needs for easy, cost-optimized high availability.
What’s next? Let us know what you’d like to see and check back for more updates!
Reproduced from SIOS