Switch the Roles of the Primary and a Standby Cell in a Database High Availability Cluster

You can use the management UI of the VMware Cloud Director appliance to switch the roles of the cells in a database high availability cluster and promote a different cell as the primary.

You can switch the roles of the primary and standby cell by using the VMware Cloud Director appliance management user interface or the VMware Cloud Director appliance API. This procedure describes the steps to do the switchover by using the management UI.

Figure 1. Switchover Between the Primary and a Standby Cell

Prerequisites

• Verify that all the nodes in the cluster are healthy and online. See View the VMware Cloud Director Appliance Cluster Health and Failover Mode.

Procedure

1. Quiesce the activities on all VMware Cloud Director cells that are part of the server group or put the cells into maintenance mode.

   The switchover causes the VMware Cloud Director database to be unavailable for 30–60 seconds. To avoid unexpected task failures, you must quiesce the activity on all cells in the cluster.

2. Log in as root to the appliance management UI at https://primary_eth1_ip_address:5480.
3. In the left panel, select Embeded Database Availability.
   You can view the names of the cells, their roles, their status, the name of the cell that the standby cells are following.
4. Verify that the cluster health is Healthy.
5. Click the Switchover button for the cell that you want to promote as primary and confirm the switchover.
6. When the switchover task completes, restart the scheduler or deactivate maintenance mode for the cells in the cluster.