Mobility XE Warehouse Recovery Options

Technical Note 2135

Last Reviewed 24-Aug 2010
Applies To
Mobility Warehouse v5.2 and v6.3.1
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Summary

This technical note describes the various ways you can restore Mobility settings in the event of the permanent failure of your warehouse or the computer hosting your warehouse.

Background

By planning ahead, you can minimize disruption to your Mobility XE servers and clients in the unlikely event of a Mobility warehouse failure.

• For smaller deployments with only a single, primary warehouse, you can save periodic backups of the settings stored in the warehouse. See technical note 2129 for detailed instructions on performing backups. Note: Smaller deployments can also make use of a standby warehouse as described in the next item.
• For larger or mission-critical deployments, you should configure a second, standby warehouse to maintain connections in the event of a primary warehouse failure. This procedure is described in technical note 2130.

Recovery Options

Your disaster recovery options depend on which of the above configurations you have deployed:

• If you have saved a backup of your warehouse, you can restore your server from a backup file. However, if you have a standby warehouse available, you should try to use the other recovery method since the settings in your backup file may not be up-to-date. For detailed instructions on backing up and restoring your warehouse, see technical note 2129.
• If you have a standby warehouse, you can promote the standby to be the new primary warehouse. See Promoting a Standby Warehouse to a Primary Warehouse below. You can then create a new warehouse, either on the machine that hosted the old primary or on a different machine, and configure that to be your new standby warehouse.

Warehouse Recover Options for Directory Server Version 5.2

Promoting a Standby Warehouse to a Primary Warehouse

The instructions for promoting a warehouse are described in five procedures:

1.        Promoting the standby server to an intermediary hub server

2.        Promoting the hub server to a master (primary) warehouse

3.        Removing old referrals from the new primary warehouse

4.        Configuring your Mobility XE servers to use the new primary warehouse

5.        Re-initializing the new primary warehouse

Promoting the Standby Warehouse to an Intermediary Hub Server

1.        On the computer running your standby warehouse, open the Sun ONE Directory Server console. (On the Start menu, click Programs, Sun ONE Server Products, Sun ONE Server Console 5.2.)

2.        On the Servers and Applications tab, expand the tree until you see your Directory Server listing. Select your server, and then click Open.

3.        On the Configuration tab, expand the Data node, expand the "o=NetMotion,..." node, and then select Replication.

4.        In the panel on the right, click Change and select Promote-Demote Replica....

5.        In the Promoting-Demoting Replica dialog box, select Hub Replica, and then click Next.

6.        Enter a location for the change log or accept the default location, and then click Next. A message box will appear indicating that the server has been promoted to a hub. Click close to dismiss the dialog box.

7.        On the Tasks tab, click Restart Directory Server. After the server has restarted, follow the steps below to promote the hub to a master (primary) warehouse server.

Promoting the Hub Server to a Master Server (Primary Warehouse)

1.        Verify that the Replication node is still selected in the directory server tree view on the left.

2.        In the panel on the right, click Change, Promote-Demote Replica....

3.        In the Promoting-Demoting Replica dialog box, select Master Replica and click Next.

4.        Enter a unique ID number for the master replica, and then click Next. (Note: This must be a unique number. Do not use the same ID that you used for the original master replica.)

5.        A message box will appear indicating that the server has been promoted to a master replica. Click close to dismiss the dialog box.

Removing Old Referrals from the New Primary Warehouse

1.        On the Configuration tab, select the "o=NetMotion,..." node, and then click the Settings tab on the right-hand panel.

2.        In the Referrals to return field, select and delete referrals (if any) and verify that the directory is set to "Process write and read requests." Click Save.

3.        On the Tasks tab, click Restart Directory Server.

4.        Close the Sun ONE Console.

Configuring your Mobility XE Servers to Use the New Primary Warehouse

1.        On each of your Mobility servers, click Start, Programs, NetMotion, Startup Settings.

2.        In the Startup Settings utility, select the Mobility XE Warehouse tab. Enter the address and LDAP port number for the new primary warehouse, and then click OK.

3.        After authenticating and connecting to the new warehouse, you will be prompted to restart the computer.

Re-initializing the New Primary Warehouse

The new primary warehouse must be re-initialized. See the System Admin Guide for instructions on re-initializing the primary warehouse. In addition you will need to contact Support for the reinit.zip file.

Warehouse Recover Options for Directory Server Version 6.3.1

Primary Warehouse

Instructions for replacing a v6.3.1 primary warehouse (with standby warehouse available)

If the primary warehouse is failing, or you plan to replace it for some other reason, follow the steps below. These steps assume that you have at least one standby warehouse:

1.      On the primary warehouse, back up the warehouse data using the Warehouse Management Tool (Manage Warehouse Data > Backup Warehouse Data).

2.      On the computer running the primary warehouse, stop the service using the Warehouse Management Tool, and then uninstall the warehouse using the Windows Add/Remove Programs application. The primary warehouse must not be available on the network.

3.      Promote one of your standby warehouses to be the primary warehouse:

1. 1. On the Start menu, click Warehouse Management Tool.
   2. Expand Manage Replication from the menu on the left.
   3. Select Promote Standby Warehouse.
   4. On each Mobility server, run Startup Settings and change the address of the current warehouse to this newly promoted warehouse, and then restart the computer.

4.    The computer from which you removed the primary warehouse in step 2 is no longer used. If you want to put it to work in your Mobility deployment as a standby warehouse, follow the instructions for installing a standby warehouse in the Mobility server online help.

Instructions for replacing a v6.3.1 primary warehouse (without a standby warehouse)

If the primary warehouse is failing, or you plan to replace it for some other reason, follow these steps if you do not have a standby warehouse:

1.      On the primary warehouse, back up the warehouse data using the Warehouse Management Tool (Manage Warehouse Data > Backup Warehouse Data).

2.      On the computer running the primary warehouse, uninstall the warehouse using the Windows Add/Remove Programs application. The primary warehouse must not be available on the network.

3.      Disable your Mobility server(s): on the Server Status page in the Mobility console, click Take Offline. This prevents it from accepting new client connections.

4.      Using Mobility Setup, reinstall the primary warehouse.

5.      Using the backup that you created in Step 1, restore your warehouse data.

6.      Enable your Mobility server(s): on the Server Status page, click Bring Online.

Standby Warehouse

Instructions for installing a v6.3.1 standby warehouse

When you set up a standby warehouse, always do a fresh install. Using Mobility XE Setup on the computer you want to use as a standby warehouse server, select Mobility Warehouse, select Standby Warehouse, and then enter the location of your primary warehouse computer.

Instructions for removing a v6.3.1 standby warehouse

1.      On the computer running the primary warehouse, open the Warehouse Management Tool and select Edit Replication Agreements on the left.

2.      Click the Refresh List button. Enter your warehouse password when prompted.

3.      Highlight the standby warehouse that you want to remove, and then click Delete. In the Mobility console (Status > Warehouse), the standby warehouse will show a ¿status 900¿ error. You can ignore this: when the standby warehouse is uninstalled, the error message will go away.

4.      On the computer running the standby warehouse that you want to remove, open the Windows Add/Remove Programs application, highlight NetMotion Mobility Warehouse 6.3.1 and then click Remove.

Summary

Once you have reconfigured and rebooted all the Mobility XE servers in your pool, they will be able to read and write settings properly using the new primary warehouse. You will want to create a new standby warehouse for your pool by following the instructions in technical note 2130.