The Failover Manager performs many actions automatically for a failover. The following are additional administrative tasks that an VMware Smart Assurance administrator can perform:
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You can manually perform changes related to configuration, such as adding or deleting devices, and change polling intervals or thresholds on the Active Managers. These changes are synchronized with the Standby Managers during periodic backups.
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You can manually initiate a failback action (or a manual failover) to change a newly-promoted Active component back to the Standby role. When a Standby component changes to an Active role, the component remains in the Active role until it fails or you manually initiate a failback. To perform a failback, use the ic-failover-server script as described in “Initiate failback (or manual failover) of SAM or a Domain Manager” on page 57.
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You can add components or make modifications to the failover.conf file while the Failover Manager is already running. If you make changes to the failover.conf file, you need to reload the file. You do not need to restart the Failover Manager.
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You can manually turn on and off the managing of the components by Failover Manager. If the components defined in the failover.conf file were not up and running during Failover Manager startup, then the Failover Manager marks them as unmanaged. Once the components are up and running, you can right-click Manage on the Service Assurance Manager or Domain Manager in the Domain Manager Administration Console. “Setting the management state of individual objects” on page 57 provides instructions.
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You can use hook scripts to specify additional steps to occur at the beginning or the end of the failover process as described in “Additional customizations with hook scripts” on page 59.
Chapter 13, Failover Manager, provides information about manual failback, backups, the reload option, and other tasks.
