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There are multiple methods available to achieve DPOD HA/DR planning and configuration. These methods depend on the customer's requirements, implementation and infrastructure.


Terminology

Node state/mode - DPOD nodes can be in state : Active (On and Performing monitoring activities) / Inactive ( Off  and Not perform monitoring activities) / DR Standby (On and Not perform monitoring activities).

Primary node - a DPOD installation that will actively monitor DataPower instances under normal circumstances (Active state).

Secondary node - an identical  DPOD installation to the Primary (In virtualized environments it is the same image of the primary node) in DR Standby or Inactive state.

3rd party DR software - a software tool that assist in identify the the primary node state has changed from active to inactive and initiate the process of launching the secondary node as an active node.



DPOD Scalability vs. HA/DR

DPOD supports installing multiple DPOD servers nodes for scalability to support high throughput in case of high rate of transactions per second (TPS). However, this does not provide a solution for HA/DR requirements.

For simplicity, this document assumes that only one DPOD server node is installed, but exactly the same scenarios and considerations apply for multiple servers nodes installations.

Important HA\DR considerations

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3. You are expected to have an Active/Passive software or another mechanism in place to identify when DPOD server node becomes inactive and launch a new one in an active cluster member.

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  1. The customer has DataPower appliances deployed using either an Active/Passive, Active/Standby or Active/Active configuration. All DataPower appliances in any of these configurations have unique IP addresses.
  2. DPOD server is node is installed once and is configured to monitor all DataPower appliances (active, standby and passive). HANAN - WHY ONCE? WE HAVE ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. IF THIS IS TRUELY ONCE THEN THE PHRASING SHOULD BE DIFFERENT AND TELL THE CUSTOMER TO BRING UP THE SAME SERVERS ON A DIFFERENT VM RACK
  3. All DPOD network services (NTP, SMTP, LDAP etc.) have the same IP addresses even after failover (otherwise a post configuration script is required to be run by the DR software).
  4. The customer has storage replication capabilities to replicate DPOD disks based on the disks’ replication policy described above.
  5. The customer has a 3rd party software tool or scripts that can:
    • Identify unavailability of the primary DPOD server node.
    • Launch a passive DPOD server using node using the same IP address as the primary one (usually on a different physical hardware).

6. The passive DPOD server node is not running when business is as usual, since disks replication is required and it has the same IP address as the primary DPOD servernode.

During a disaster:

  1. The customer's DR software should Identify a failure in DPOD primary server node (e.g. by pinging access IP, sampling user interface URL or both).
  2. The customer's DR software should launch the passive DPOD server node using the same IP address as the failed primary server node (or change the IP address if not already configured that way).

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  1. The customer has DataPower appliances deployed using either an Active/Passive or Active/Stand-by configuration. All DataPower appliances in any of these configurations have unique IP addresses.
  2. DPOD server is installed once and is configured to monitor all DataPower appliances (active, standby and passive). HANAN - WHY ONCE? WE HAVE ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. IF THIS IS TRUELY ONCE THEN THE PHRASING SHOULD BE DIFFERENT AND TELL THE CUSTOMER TO BRING UP THE SAME SERVERS ON A DIFFERENT VM RACK
  3. All DPOD network services (NTP, SMTP, LDAP etc.) have the same IP addresses even after failover (otherwise a post configuration script is required to be run by the DR software).
  4. The customer has storage replication capabilities to replicate DPOD disks based on the disks’ replication policy described above.
  5. The customer has a 3rd party software tool or scripts that can:

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  • Although the passive DPOD server has a different IP address, all the DataPower appliances will still be able to access it since their internal host aliases pointing to DPOD will be replaced (step 5 above).
  • As all DataPower appliances retain the same IP addresses - the passive DPOD server that was just became active can continue to sample them.
  • Although the passive DPOD server has a different IP, all users can access DPOD’s web console because its DNS name has been changed or it is behind an NLB (step 4 above).

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  1. The customer has DataPower appliances deployed using either an Active/Passive or Active/Stand-by configuration. All DataPower appliances in any of these configurations have unique IP addresses.
  2. Two DPOD servers are installed (both are v1requires DPOD version 1.0.5 +), one operates as the active machine node and the other one as standby node. After installing the standby DPOD servernode, it was must be configured as a standby servernode. See "makeStandby" API under DR REST API.
  3. Both DPOD servers should have the same environment name. The environment name is set by the customer during DPOD software deployment or during upgrade, and  and is visible at the top navigation bar (circled in red in the image below):



  4. When the DPOD server node is in DR Standby mode, a message is shown next to the environment name in the Web Console. A refresh (F5) may be required to reflect recent changes if the makeStandby API has just been executed, or when the DPOD status has changed from active to standby or vice versa. See the image below:



  5. Both DPOD servers are configured separately The customer is expected to configure each DPOD node to monitor all DataPower Devices (active, standby and passive). Since DPOD v1.0.5 a new REST API may be utilized to add a new DataPower device to DPOD without using the UI (see Devices REST API). As both servers are up, no configuration or data replication can exist in this scenario. The customer added DataPower devices Especially, customer must add DataPower instances to the standby DPOD server and set the agents for each device from the Device Management page in the web console (or by using the Devices REST API). Setting up the devices in the standby DPOD server will not make any changes to the monitored DataPower devices (no log targets, host aliases or configuration changes will be made).
  6. All DPOD network services (NTP, SMTP, LDAP etc.) have the same IP addresses even after failover (otherwise a post configuration script is required to be run by the DR software).
  7. The customer has a 3rd party software tool or scripts that can:
    • Identify unavailability of the primary DPOD servernode.Launch a passive DPOD server using a different IP address than the primary one
    • change the state of the secondary node (that is in standby state) to Active state  .
  8. The standby DPOD server can still be online as disk replication is not required.

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  1. The customer's DR software should Identify a failure in DPOD primary server (e.g. by pinging access IP, sampling user interface URL or both).
  2. The customer's DR software should enable the standby DPOD server by calling the "standbyToActive" API (see DR REST API). This API will point DPOD's log targets and host aliases of the monitored devices to the standby server and enable most timers based services (Reports,Alerts ...) on secondary servers.
  3. The customer's DR software should change the DNS name for the DPOD server's web console to reference an actual IP address or use an NLB in front of both DPOD web consoles.

DPOD will be available in the following way:

  • Although the passive standby DPOD server has a different IP address, all the DataPower appliances will still be able to access it since their internal host aliases pointing to DPOD will be replaced (step 2 above).
  • As all DataPower appliances retain the same IP addresses - DPOD can continue to sample them.
  • Although the passive secondary  DPOD server node has a different IP, all users can access DPOD’s web console because its DNS name has been changed or it is behind an NLB (step 3 above).
  • Note - All Data from the originally Active DPOD will not be available! 

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