HP Serviceguard I

Course overview

This course teaches system administrators how to effectively use Serviceguard to protect mission critical applications from a wide variety of hardware and software failures. The 5-day course is 40 percent lecture and 60 percent hands-on labs using HP servers. This course has been updated to support HP-UX 11.31 and Serviceguard version 11.18 but is still applicable to earlier versions of the product.

Prerequisites

• HP-UX System and Network Administration I (H3064S) and HP-UX System and Network Administration II (H3065S) or
• HP-UX System and Network Administration for Experienced UNIX® System Administrators (H5875S) and
• HP-UX Logical Volume Manager (H6285S) or HP-UX VERITAS Volume Manager (HB505S) and
• POSIX Shell Programming (H4322S)

Course objectives

• Configure a volume group or disk group that can be used on multiple systems and a basic package to run in a Serviceguard environment
• Configure and maintain a Serviceguard cluster
• Configure and implement an application monitor
• Use contributed Serviceguard commands to perform troubleshooting
• Replace a failed LVM lock disk
• Change the cluster configuration and add or delete a package to a running cluster
• Set up a Serviceguard package using the NFS toolkit and Oracle toolkit
• Configure a highly available network using redundant hubs, routers, and networks
• Perform a rolling upgrade
• Use Serviceguard Manager to manage a Serviceguard cluster
• Perform troubleshooting activities to resolve Serviceguard configuration problems

Audience

• HP-UX system administrators who currently, or soon will, develop, design, implement, and monitor Serviceguard clusters

Ways to save

Benefits to you

• Protect your mission critical applications against a wide variety of hardware and software failures through effective use of Serviceguard
• Deliver highly available application services to your LAN-attached clients by configuring up to 16-nodes in an enterprise cluster
• Reduce your application downtime to near zero by learning how to configure your Serviceguard cluster and using Serviceguard's rolling upgrade facility
• Minimize, and in some instances eliminate, your application downtime by learning how to automate the detection of failures and restoration of application service

Next Steps

• HP Serviceguard II: Disaster Tolerance, Continental Clusters, CFS, and Oracle RAC (U8601S).
• HP StorageWorks XP 1: Configuration and Management (H6773S)

If you require more assistance with Serviceguard, HP also offers Serviceguard implementation services (H4810AT). For more information about this service, contact your local HP services representative.

Course outline

Introduction to Serviceguard

• Serviceguard features and benefits
• How Serviceguard works
• Serviceguard packages
• Minimizing planned downtime
• Serviceguard and Integrity VM
• Oracle RAC and CFS
• Serviceguard Manager for Sg 11.17/11.18
• MetroCluster

High Availability Planning

• Ways to reduce risks
• Disk, disk array, and network configurations
• Routed networks and Serviceguard clusters
• Configuration roadmap

Cluster Concepts and Configuration

• Major Components of a Cluster
• Network Interface Configuration
• Cluster formation requirements
• Cluster management options
• Monitoring the cluster

Additional Cluster Features

• Serviceguard volume groups
• Cluster formation and reformations
• Node failures and node joins
• Local LAN card failover

Packages and Services

• Packaging concepts
• Viewing and modifying package status
• Package scripts
• Package configuration procedure
• Package script log file

Package Policies

• Package and failover policies
• Rotating standby
• Failback policies and automatic failback
• Node fail fast and service fail fast

Application Monitoring Scripts

• Actions performed by run script
• Control script
• Rules for service processes
• Application monitoring script

Best Practices

• Monitoring the syslog file
• Package script troubleshooting
• Testing cluster operations
• Useful troubleshooting commands
• The built-in safety net
• Lost cluster lock disk (LVM disks)

Cluster and Package Online Reconfiguration

• Serviceguard online reconfiguration
• Add or remove a node while a cluster is running
• Add or remove a package while a cluster is running
• Modify a package while the cluster is running and the package may, or may not, be running

• Highly available NFS package
• NFS toolkit files
• Using the NFS toolkit
• NFS script variables

The Highly Available Oracle Database

• Serviceguard and database toolkits and contents
• Oracle control script modification
• Oracle monitor script
• Oracle cookbook

Storage for Servicegard

• Serviceguard Disk Space Management Overview
• Review of LVM Concepts
• LVM Issues with Serviceguard
• VxVM Terminology Overview
• Serviceguard/VxVM Software Overview
• Configure VxVM Disks
• Import / Deport the Disk Group on the Other Node
• CFS Filesystem