Identity failover – HP Storage Mirroring V4.5 Software User Manual

Page 55

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5.

To specify the value the Application Manager will establish for Time to Live (TTL) on the source’s

affected DNS records, select the Update TTL checkbox, then enter the desired update interval

(in seconds). The default is the current maximum TTL of all the source’s A records. The

recommended value is 300 seconds (5 minutes).

6.

In the Username field, enter the user name that will be used to access/modify DNS records.

The login account MUST be a member of the DNSAdmins group for the domain in which the DNS

server resides. For more information about permissions, see

Recommended Credentials

on

page A-1.
You may enter a user name for a different domain by entering a fully-qualified user name. The

fully-qualified user name must be in the format domain\username or username@domain. If

you enter a non-qualified name, the DNS domain will be used by default. The domain name is

obtained from the DNS server name, provided that reverse lookup in DNS is enabled. For more

information about enabling reverse lookup, refer to your Microsoft documentation.

7.

In the Password field, enter the password that will be used to access/modify DNS records.

8.

Click the Test button to validate that DNS failover is configured correctly for the selected DNS

server(s) and that the specified credentials are sufficient to update DNS.

9.

When the DNS configuration is complete, click OK to save your entries and return to the

Configure Protection window.

Identity failover

Select this option if you want to failover by transferring the source IP address and name to the target.

When using identity failover, it is possible that a name and/or IP address conflict can occur either

during failover or when the original source server comes back online. To avoid this conflict, use DNS

Failover.

In Identity Failover, the target’s physical identity is modified to match the source during a failover.

This includes the target adopting the source server’s name, primary IP address, and drive shares

during a failover. Identity failover may be required in the following situations:

Access to the domain controller or DNS server is not available (for example, due to permissions)

from the account that Storage Mirroring runs under on the source/target servers.

If you determine that the time it takes to propagate the necessary DNS or Active Directory

changes to the rest of your environment is not acceptable. The time needed to propagate these

changes depends on your Active Directory Replication and DNS server settings.

NOTE:

If you are running Windows Server 2000 on the primary DNS server hosting zones or

domains that contain source and/or target resource records, you must have the DNS

WMI Provider installed on that DNS server.

The Dynamic updates setting for the DNS zone should be set to Secure only.

Otherwise, you must disable dynamic registration on the source server in order to

prevent the source from reclaiming its DNS record.

If a hosts file entry for the source server exists on the client machine, errors may occur

during a failover and failback.

Reverse lookup in DNS should be enabled. For more information about enabling reverse

lookup, refer to your Microsoft documentation.

DNS registration for the private (devoted to Storage Mirroring) NIC IP should be

disabled.

If dynamic updates are enabled on a standard primary zone, the source server will be

able to update its DNS records after failover. To prevent this, configure DNS to use an

Active Directory-integrated zone.

For more information about using the DNS Failover utility, access the

dfo.exe

help by

typing

dfo.exe /?

from a command prompt.

NOTE:

Identity failover is not supported in clustered environments.
Application Manager cannot be used for failover or failback when the Identity failover

method is selected. However, the Failover Control Center can still be used to initiate

failover. DNS failover reduces downtime and provides other benefits. It is recommended

for most environments.

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