Central Manager Failover - Australia to US

[simmo]

Hi,

Just after clarification on how the failover process works,

and whether the would be any problems expected if we have a primary CM in Australia, and the standby in California?

the documentation is a bit light on how this actually works, but my understanding is this:

2 central managers, 1 role = primary, 1 role = standby

40 waas devices, with the config 'central-manager address <primary IP Address>

If primary CM fails, we have to MANUALLY promote the standby role to primary

All WAAS devices (ie application accellerators) will automagically re-register to the standby, because it has learned its address via its previous discussion with the primary.

Please clarify!

thanks, Simmo.

[Kanwaljeet Singh]

Hi,

Below is from user guide and explains how to switch roles. Even if the primary goes down you would still need to manually make the standby primary. There should be no problem as long as both communicate properly and synchronize. Please visit the below link for more details:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/app_ntwk_services/waas/waas/v501/configuration/guide/maint.html#wp1217890

Switching Both Central Manager Roles

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Caution When you switch a WAAS Central Manager from primary to standby, the configuration on the Central Manager is erased. The Central Manager, after becoming a standby, will begin replicating its configuration information from whichever Central Manager is now the primary. If standby and primary units are not synchronized before switching roles, important configuration information can be lost.

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Before you switch Central Manager roles, follow these steps:

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Step 1 Ensure that your Central Manager devices are running the same version of WAAS software.

Step 2 Synchronize the physical clocks on both devices so that both WAAS Central Managers have the same Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) configured.

Step 3 Ensure that the standby is synchronized with the primary by checking the status of the following items:

a. Check the online status of your devices.

The original standby Central Manager and all currently active devices should be showing as online in the Central Manager GUI. This step ensures that all other devices know about both Central Managers.

b. Check the status of recent updates from the primary WAAS Central Manager.

Use the show cms info EXEC command and check the time of the last update. To be current, the value of the Time of last config-sync field should be between 1 and 5 minutes old. You are verifying that the standby WAAS Central Manager has fully replicated the primary WAAS Central Manager configuration.

If the update time is not current, determine whether or not there is a connectivity problem or if the primary WAAS Central Manager is down. Fix the problem, if necessary, and wait until the configuration has replicated, as indicated by the time of the last update.

Step 4 Switch roles in the following order:

a. Switch the original primary to standby mode:

WAE1# configure

WAE1(config)# central-manager role standby

WAE(config)# cms enable

b. Switch the original standby to primary mode:

WAE2# configure

WAE2(config)# central-manager role primary

WAE(config)# cms enable

The CMS service is restarted automatically when you configure a role change.

Regards,

Kanwal