The deactivate primary pool when down option is available for the pool groups associated with a virtual service. If the primary pool goes down, it is disabled and will not become primary pool, even when it returns online. This forces the new or existing connections to be routed to the secondary pool, which takes over the role as the primary, until the administrator manually re-enables the primary pool group.

The Process

  • This feature is supported in active/ standby mode only.

  • HA for this feature is not yet supported.

  • A pool group is configured with members (each with different priorities).

  • By default, the pool configured with the highest priority acts as the primary pool and receives all the connections or requests.

  • When the highest priority pool goes down, the next available priority pool takes over the current primary role and receives all connections and requests.

  • When the previous primary pool comes back online, it does not resume the current primary role automatically. Once the primary pool goes down, it is not eligible to take over, until the administrator manually makes it the primary pool.

  • When the admin configures one of the members to primary, it clears off all the connections to the old primary and makes the requested one, the new primary.

Enabling Deactivate Primary Pool on Down Option

Enable the deactivate_primary_pool_on_down flag under the pool group configuration as shown below:

[admin:cntrlr]: > configure poolgroup <poolgroup name>
[admin:cntrlr]: poolgroup> deactivate_primary_pool_on_down
[admin:cntrlr]: poolgroup> save

Enabling One of the Pools as the Primary Pool

[admin:cntrlr]: > show poolgroup pg1 detail
+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Field | Value |
+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| last_primary_pool | pool2(pool-4c86d835-16ec-4a60-839c-064d33040dff) |
| current_primary_pool | pool1(pool-23aad7e1-4f5a-4dbf-8361-0324480cc2c9) |
| last_primary_pool_switchover_time | Wed Aug 18 12:42:22 2021 ms(0) UTC |
| primary_pool_switchover_in_progress | False |
| num_conn_drops_during_pool_switchover | 22 |
+---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------+

Use the enable_primary_pool option to make the highest priority pool primary:

[admin:cntrlr]: > clear poolgroup pg enable_primary_pool

Use the following option to make the specified pool primary:

[admin:cntrlr]: > clear poolgroup pg1 enable_primary_pool pool_uuid pool-4c86d835-16ec-4a60-839c-064d33040dff