Configuring proxy servers for failover

The proxy server failover setup requires the Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus basic failover architecture, and the following additional components: a primary proxy server and a backup proxy server.

About this task

The following figure shows the configuration for proxy server failover.

Figure 1. Proxy server failover setup

In the basic failover setup, alert data from the primary aggregation ObjectServer is replicated in the backup aggregation ObjectServer through a bidirectional ObjectServer Gateway. If a connection to the primary aggregation ObjectServer fails, the clients attempt to connect to the backup aggregation ObjectServer. As shown in the figure, you must set up a virtual proxy server pair to which probes can connect. Set up the primary proxy server PROXY_P to have a single connection to the primary aggregation ObjectServer AGG_P. Set up the backup proxy server PROXY_B for failover by configuring PROXY_B to connect to the virtual ObjectServer pair AGG_V.

If you are using a process agent to control the primary proxy server under this configuration, and the primary ObjectServer fails, the process agent can restart PROXY_P and prevent it failing over to PROXY_B. Probes connecting through PROXY_P then go into store and forward mode because the primary ObjectServer is not running and PROXY_P has not failed over to PROXY_B. In such a case, you can point the primary proxy server to the virtual ObjectServer pair AGG_V. When the primary Objectserver fails, events routed through PROXY_P are then sent to the backup ObjectServer.

Using the architecture shown in the preceding figure, configure the proxy servers for failover as follows:

1. Sset up the server communications details in the connections data file ($NCHOME/etc/omni.dat or %NCHOME%\ini\sql.ini).
   Use the following sample configuration as a guideline:

   [AGG_P]
   {
           Primary:        nchost1 10000
   }
   [AGG_B]
   {
           Primary:        nchost2 10001
   }
   [AGG_GATE]
   {
           Primary:        nchost2 10002
   }
   [AGG_V]
   {
           Primary:        nchost1 10000
           Backup:         nchost2 10001
   
   }
   [PROXY_P]
   {
           Primary:        nchost1 10003
   }
   [PROXY_B]
   {
           Primary:        nchost2 10004
   }
   [PROXY_V]
   {
           Primary:        nchost1 10003
           Backup:         nchost2 10004
   }

2. Configure probes to connect to the proxy servers. In the probe properties file:
   • Set Server to PROXY_V.
   • Set ServerBackup to "".
3. In the primary proxy server (PROXY_P) properties file, set the RemoteServer property. The value that you set depends on whether or not you are running the proxy server under process control.
   • If you are not running the primary process server under process control, set RemoteServer to AGG_P, as shown in the sample configuration above.
   • If you are running the primary process server under process control, set RemoteServer to AGG_V.
4. In the backup proxy server (PROXY_B) properties file, set RemoteServer to AGG_V.