7-10 Shared Disk DR

7-10 Shared Disk DR

The shared disk DR resource replicate a shared disk in a cluster to an off-site DR node for disaster recovery purpose.

The shared disk DR resource is composed of three nodes that manage the shared disk. The off-site DR node is target replica, but not the member of cluster.
In other words, MCCS is not involved with automatic operation like failover, online and offline of the off-site node, so human intervention is needed to recover from a disaster at the node.

Data is replicated from the source-primary node to the off-site DR node and the source-secondary node that cannot access the shared disk recognizes the shared disk as the one having the "NONE" role.
Thus, the off-site DR node and the "NONE" node are locked and these cannot write or read the data to prevent data corruption.

Shared Disk DR resource can only register a pre-configured DRBD resource.

Table of Contents

[Figure] Mirroring Configuration

 

Mirror Mode

Mirror mode employs both asynchronous and synchronous mirroring schemes. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages between synchronous and asynchronous mirroring is essential to the correct operation of this.

Asynchronization Mode

With asynchronous mirroring, each write is captured and a copy of this is made. That copy is queued to be transmitted to the target system as soon as the network will allow it. Meanwhile, the original write request is committed to the underlying storage device and control is immediately returned to the application that initiated the write. At any given time, there may be write transactions waiting in the queue to be sent to the target machine.  But it is important to understand that these writes reach the target volume in time order, so the integrity of the data on the target volume is always a valid snapshot of the source volume at some point in time.  Should the source system fail, it is possible that the target system did not receive all of the writes that were queued up, but the data that has made it to the target volume is valid and usable.

Semi Synchronization Mode 

With semi-synchronous mirroring, each write is captured and transmitted to the target system. Local write completes in the source as soon as the replication packet has reached the target. Normally, no writes are lost in case of failover , but this may can be lost when both nodes are failed simultaneously. 

Synchronization Mode

With synchronous mirroring, each write is captured and transmitted to the target system to be written on the target volume at the same time that the write is committed to the underlying storage device on the source system.  Once both the local and target writes are complete, the write request is acknowledged as complete and control is returned to the application that initiated the write.  With synchronous mirroring, each write is intercepted and transmitted to the target system to be written on the target volume at the same time that the write is committed to the underlying storage device on the source system.  Once both the local and target writes are complete, the write request is acknowledged as complete and control is returned to the application that initiated the write.

 

Adding

Add the shared disk DR resource to a group.

MCCS for linux support DRBD which is open source as mirror disk. Therefore, DRBD should be installed in advance.
The size of disk file system that is created by mirror disk should be created with 128MB
128M space is required to store meta data that manages replication volume service. Size of meta data can be changed according to the size of the meta data.
Please refer to DRBD meta data size(Calculation for more details). 
When use both DBRB and LVM, only DRBD ON LVM is supported and LVM In DRBD is not supported. 

Mirror IP address of the cluster should be assigned a virtual IP address to represent each real IP addresses of both nodes in the primary site. So the virtual IP should be added in a group in advance.

  1. When add a resource from a group name, select a group → right click → "Add Resource". Or select "Edit(E)" from the main menu bar → select "Add Resource". Or select "Add Resource" icon from the tool bar.  

  2. Select "SharedDisk DR" from Resource Type lists and click the "Next" button. When add a resource from the SharedDisk DR resource type name, this step will be skipped.

  3. Enter the resource name and select mirror volume of shared disk in the cluster.


    [Figure] Shared Disk DR Resource Added

  4. As the "Additional Settings" button, KillBusyApps option, File System Check options are available and click the "OK" button.

    <killBusyApps>
    When the Shared Disk DR resource goes offline, determine whether to forcefully terminate the tasks that has used the mirror disk resource.

    <DoFscK>
    When use this, fsck will be performed when shared disk DR resource is brought online. 

    <FsckOpt>
    Enter the option for fsck.


    [Figure] Shared Disk DR Additional Setting

     

  5. Click the "Finish" button to add the shared disk DR, then VIP address for mirroring will depend to this.
    (For more details about dependency, please refer to '5.4 Dependency Management' of this manual.)

Deleting

Select "Resource type" → right click → delete resource.

  1. Click the "Delete resource" button and a confirming message about deleting resource will appear.

  2. Click the "OK" button and mirror disk is deleted. The deleted resource will immediately disappear from the management web console.

 

State

The following table explains the state of shared disk DR resource.

Shared disk DR agent: Manages a mirror disk, and to use this, it is necessary to install a replication program.

State

Agent command

Description

Note

Online

Source(Primary) disk is accessible to read/write.

Offline

If the role of mirror resource is online, Unmount (umount) the mirror disk from the mount point and the role of mirror disk demoted to secondary and offline the mirror disk resource. 
If the mirror disk is not defined, the command is ignored and regarded as a failure.

 

Monitoring

MCCS consistently handles events of the replication component.
The MCCS event monitor is registered as an event receiver when starting the MCCS service. When a system event occurs, it will be automatically informed and it will detect the mirror disk status and role changes. 
If the mirror disk's role is primary and it is mounted in the designated mount point, it is deemed to be online. 
In other cases, it is recognized as an offline state.

 

Offline

Source(Primary) and Target(Secondary) disks are not fault state but locked so that cannot access both disk.

Online

Online is performed as below procedure.

  1. Up command is excuted on mirror disk resource.

  2. Role of mirror disk of the node is promoted to Primary and it is mounted in the designated mount point. At this point, role of mirror disk of the peer node should be Secondary.

 If the mirror disk is not defined, the command is ignored and regarded as a failure.

 

Monitoring

Refer to the description of monitoring as above.

 

Fault

 If a writing test failed online, or an attempt to go online is failed, the trouble state is displayed.

*Failover disabled state
When a mirror network communication failure, target node or target disk failure occurs, the mirror state is changed from 'MIRRORING' to other, such as 'MIRROR_PAUSED'.
If the mirror status is not 'MIRRORING', a failover will take place and it can cause data losses or damages.
To prevent this problem, MCCS disables the failover mode if the mirror status is not "MIRRORING".
If the failover mode is disabled, no failover will take place even if manual failover or troubles occur.If mirror network has been failed and then, recovered as normal, mirror status is changed to RESYNC and data re-synching is initiated between primary cluster set and off-site DR node.

Online

Refer to the above online command.

 

Offline

If the role of mirror resource is online, Unmount (umount) the mirror disk from the mount point and the role of mirror disk is demoted to secondary and offline the mirror disk resource.
If the mirror disk is not defined, the command is ignored and regarded as a failure.