Migrating Existing Systems as Failover Pairs

You can migrate two existing Operation Center (OC) or standalone appliances to form a failover pair. Ensure that both appliances are running versions of NetMRI 7.1.1 or later. To form a collector failover, migrate the existing collector to NetMRI 7.1.2 or later releases.

Following are the pre-requisites for migrating existing systems as a failover pair:

• Two supported NetMRI appliances with licenses installed. You can choose an existing appliance and a second appliance of the same model.
• Provision two additional IP addresses on the same subnet: a management IP address assigned to each system and a VIP address shared between the failover pair.
• If you use the direct replication method to connect two appliances, you need an Ethernet cable to connect the appliances directly through their HA ports. This is applicable only to hardware appliances.
• If you are using the network replication method to connect the appliances, you must connect the systems over a local network and two replication IPs must be acquired on the same subnet. You must also select a TCP port for the replication traffic.

To migrate two existing systems to form a failover pair:

1. Choose an existing NetMRI system and configure a second NetMRI system of the same model.
2. If you are using scan ports, connect the scan ports of the second system to the network in the same way as the existing system. For information, see the Failover and Scan Interfaces topic in the NetMRI online Help.
3. Connect both systems using one of the following methods:

   • Direct replication: You can connect the systems directly through their HA ports. For virtual appliances, direct replication is used in a separate VM-only network that contains only an HA pair.

   • Network replication: You can connect the HA port of both systems to a network using an Ethernet cable. For virtual machines, network replication means a virtual machine in one subnet is connected to a virtual machine in another subnet through a network.
     Note that Infoblox recommends setting up virtual machines (data center or hypervisor) in the same location. If the machines are not set up in the same location, high latency or limited bandwidth can cause unstable performance.
     Infoblox recommends that you connect the systems using the direct replication method.

4. Run the Setup Wizard on the second system and set the admin password and install the license. For information about the Setup Wizard, see the Running the Setup Wizard topic and its subsections in the NetMRI online Help.
5. Exit the Setup Wizard after setting the password and installing the license on the second system.
6. Upgrade the systems to NetMRI 7.1.1, if necessary.
7. After upgrading both systems to NetMRI 7.1.1 or later, repartition the systems to prepare them for automatic failover, do the following:
   

   1. Log in to the administrative shell on the second system and enter the repartition command.
      Note that the repartition command applies only to physical appliances.
      Note that if the system is already partitioned for failover, an error message appears when you run the repartition command.

   2. Generate a database archive of your existing system and restore this to the second system. Re-enable SNMP collection after restoring the archive on the second system. To enable SNMP collection, click the Settings icon > Setup > Collection and Groups > Global tab > Network Polling side tab, and then select SNMP Collection.
   3. If the data restore is not successful, do not proceed to the next step. If the restore failed due to disk space exhaustion, you may try reducing data retention settings on your existing NetMRI system to reduce the archive size. For more information, see Data Retention in Infoblox NetMRI Administrator Guide or contact Infoblox Support for further assistance. Note that it might take up to 24 hours for reduced data retention settings to take effect.
   4. If the data restore is successful, log in to the Administrative Shell on the existing system, enter the reset system command, and then enter the repartition command. If the system is already partitioned for failover, an error message appears when you run the repartition command. After repartitioning is complete, run the configure server command, install the license, and then reset the admin password in GUI to match the other system.
8. If you want to use the management IP address of your existing system as the VIP of the failover pair, then you must change the management IP address of the existing system.
9. To configure the second system to take the role of the primary system, do the following:
   1. Log into the second system.
   2. Go to Settings > Setup > Failover Configuration.
   3. On the Failover Configuration page, configure the settings. For more information, see the Specifying Automatic Failover Settings topic in the NetMRI online Help.
      Note that after specifying the failover configuration settings and completing the enable operation, the systems start synchronizing data. This process might take up to one hour, depending on the appliance model. For details about how to configure these settings, refer to the Infoblox NetMRI Administrator Guide.
      
10. For an Operation Center, complete the following:
    1. Log in to the administrative shell on the Operation Center and run the reset tunserver and configure tunserver commands. Enter the VIP address of the Operation Center when prompted for the IP address of the Operation Center server.

    2. Log in to the administrative shell on each Collector and run the reset tunclient and register tunclient commands. Enter the VIP address of the Operation Center when prompted for the IP address of the Operation Center.