We currently looking for a solution for Fault-Tolarant with Business Objects XI R2 File Repostory system without using SAN.
I came across Windows Server 2003 R2 DFS Namespace and using DFS to replicate the data across two Servers.
The idea is to have both input and output services on server 1 and 2 (one active and passive) pointing to a DFS Namespace. If one server goes down then the DFS namespace will be redirected to server 2.
Just wondering if anyone implement this solution before.
If Server1 is active and Server2 is passive with one way replication going from Server1 to Server2, what happens if there if Server1 goes down for, say a day ?
When the Server1 comes back up, it would seem that it would never have any of the changes that occured when the Server2 was promoted, and therefore if Server2 goes down and has data loss, you won’t have a copy of those changes on Server1.
With one-way replication I mean that 1 server is leading. Replication will go both ways, but the DFS path should point to the leading server (the enabled one). This way the replication will go from the FileStore on the leading server to following server
Basically Server 2 should take over. When the other server is down it might be handy to stop the DFS replication manually and/or set Server 2 to the active (enabled) .
When Server 1 becomes active again and Server2 is set active it will replicate the changed files from Server1 to Server2. When both servers are in sync it will be necessary to restore the settings to make Server1 master again.
I’m not a DFS guru and we’ve had some serious problems with it after my last mail here (because of Windows or Business Objects bugs) and I’m very careful with it. To make sure it will work properly I use the following procedure:
[list]* stop all BO processes (to avoid file locking/changing etc)
check source and target directories
change DFS settings
reboot servers (to clear old DFS settings from memory/cache)
start BO processes again
check again (and also the logs)[/list]
It may sound overcautious but we’ve had a corrupted filestore/database because of misconfigurations/bugs and it isn’t fun. When I have some time left’I want to try to make a real fault tolerant configuration with DFS (when no dedicated fault tolerant file storage is present)
(BOB member since 2007-06-26)
(BOB member since 2002-08-15)