GUI – Defining a high-availability group

To ensure continuous storage management, multiple Spectrum Control instances can be activated and combined into high-availability (HA) groups.

Before you begin

You must define HA groups before adding storage arrays to Spectrum Control.

About this task

An HA group is a combination of two or more Spectrum Control instances, operating in the active/passive mode. Active Spectrum Control instances are backed up by the standby ones to provide uninterruptible service if one of them becomes unavailable. A default HA group (default_ha_group) is created automatically during Spectrum Control installation.

Procedure

Click Settings on the Settings menu. The Settings dialog box is displayed.

Enter the FDQN of the first Spectrum Control and the name of the HA group that you want to create, and then click Apply. The HA group and its first member are added. The Spectrum Control, which is added to the HA group first, becomes its active member.

Note: The FQDN, which you enter, is automatically copied to the Hostname field of the Server Certificate dialog box during the generation of the Spectrum Control server certificate, as explained in GUI – Managing server certificates.

This image shows the Settings dialog box. — Figure 1. Settings dialog box

Add an FQDN of the remaining Spectrum Control servers to define them as standby HA group members.
Enter the same HA group name as for the first Spectrum Control instance.
Define storage credentials for all Spectrum Control instances, as explained in GUI – Entering the storage array credentials.
Add the same storage array for all Spectrum Control instances. Spectrum Control redundancy is available only if all HA group members manage the same storage array. See GUI – Adding a storage array.
Configure the server certificates. See GUI – Managing server certificates.
Register all HA group members as storage providers in the vCenter server. See Registering Spectrum Control as a storage provider in vCenter server.

Add storage spaces and services to the active Spectrum Control. There is no need to configure these settings for the backup HA members. See GUI – Managing storage spaces and services.

Note: If you intend to change the default HA group name, any XIV storage array with microcode 11.5, defined on the default HA group member, must be removed from Spectrum Control before the group name change.

A failover to a standby HA group member occurs when the active Spectrum Control service is stopped or reset. See Checking and controlling the Spectrum Control service.

The VVOL-enabled storage services, defined on the active Spectrum Control, are restored on the standby HA group members automatically after the failover is completed.