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Standby TS 7 server

fiquebem

We have TS 7.0 on Windows 2003. We want to set up a high-availability TS system and are going to set up a Standby/Passive TS server in case the Production/Active TS server goes down. (The Standby computer will have a different server name and IP address.)

I'm not sure about the restrictions of a Standby license. Can the Passive server and the Active server switch roles "permanently," which would allow us to, for example, upgrade the Passive server while users continue using the other server (and then switch the users over to the upgraded server)?

Anyway, in the good (bad?) old days, all one had to worry about was the Content Store. Now, with TS 7.0+, one is supposed to have databases for Common Services, the Event Subsystem, TS Reporting, SitePublisher and LiveSite.

What's the best way to set up a Standby server in this new world? I assume it needs to have separate Common Services, Event Subsystem and other databases of its own. This way, we can install TS on the Standby server and maintain it while the other TS server keeps running.

But then, when it came time to failover to the Standby server, we'd need to change the Standby server to point to the Production Content Store and Production databases (and change the other TS server to point away to another Content Store and other databases). For example, on the Standby server, can we change from the Standby Common Services database to the Production Common Services database without trouble, or should we not do that?

Even if we don't reuse the Production Common Services database on the Standby server, we might very well want to reuse the Production Reporting and SitePublisher databases on the Standby server, no?

Where (in which file) is the Common Services database defined anyway? And the SitePublisher database? I hope none of these databases have host-specific references.

Our Production Content Store in on a SAN drive (E: ) which is accessible from both the Passive and Active servers, so we can easily point the Standby server to E:\iw-store while changing the other server to point to the local Content Store (D:\iw-store).

Incidentally, I don't think we'll be backing up our Content Store more than once a day, as that would require too many Freeze operations. So, we'll hope for the best and, in the case of a crash, we'll just check the integrity of the Content Store (via the iwfsck command line tool, I guess) and continue using it. If we find errors, we'll revert to the nightly copy of the Content Store.

Of course, we also have OpenDeploy installed, but haven't set up a database for its Event Subsystem.

We have Interwoven Search installed on a separate computer. We'll have to change pointers to/from it too when failing over to the Standby server.

I know there is a "Backing up TeamSite" chapter in the product documentation, but where is the documentation on disaster recovery?

Any comments will be appreciated.

Thanks,

S.

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Comments

nipper

Can't help there, but you have got to get upgraded to 7.1

I am looking to high availability as well for 7.1 (or even 7.2) but that is still a few months down the road.

fiquebem

Can't help there, but you have got to get upgraded to 7.1

I am looking to high availability as well for 7.1 (or even 7.2) but that is still a few months down the road.

I think the best bet for quick and easy Disaster Recovery is to run TS on a virtual server (e.g, on VMware). Having a Standby server requires buying another license and maintaining the 2nd server in sync with the Active/Production server. Then you have to worry about keeping the databases (such as the TS Reporting ones) in sync.

Whereas, with a virtual server, in case of a disaster, you simply fire up another box with the same server name and image it with the original server's virtual file (or whatever they call it).

I don't think there'd be any Interwoven license-related issues with the above, huh?

Anyway, my client chose to deploy a Standby server. I opened a support ticket with Autonomy Interwoven Support with my original posting on this thread. Let's see if they provide any input, although they're not meant to provide free consulting services :-).

S.