The Failover Manager performs the backup of repository (RPS) and local files periodically from Active host to Standby host based on the value specified for the BackupInterval parameter in the failover.conf file.

Also, you can perform a manual backup action as described in “Initiate manual backup, failback, and reload” on page 57.

Note:

If you are running the Failover Manager from your Standby SAM installation, and you customize any files in the following directories for use by Failover Manager, the changes should be present on both the Active and Standby SAM hosts. The affected directories are local/actions, local/model, local/rules, and local/script. Placing copies of Failover Manager files in both Active and Standby locations ensures that the Standby files will not be overwritten when Failover Manager performs backups.

The brokerConnect.conf, clientConnect.conf, serverConnect.conf, runcmd_env.sh, and imk.dat files do not get copied between locations as part of the backup. These special files should not be copied between Active and Standby hosts. If any maintenance is needed for these files, you need manually modify the file on both hosts as described in “Update special installation files manually” on page 57.

The Failover Manager copies the following directories from the SM_SITEMOD location of the Active host to the SM_SITEMOD location of the Standby host:

  • The /rules, /actions, /script, and /model directories under the /local directory

  • The conf/icf, conf/trapd, conf/beacon, conf/asm-ntier, conf/audit-parse, conf/serverhealth, conf/icim-core, conf/maps, conf/notifier, conf/alcatel-sam, conf/discovery, conf/devstat, conf/health

  • The conf/mpls-tma, conf/mpls-a, conf/mpls-m, conf/mpls-t, conf/vpn-tagging

    Repository files are not copied for SAM and Adapter Platform, but the repository files for BIM, IP Manager, NPM, MPLS, Server Manager, and VoIP Availability Manager are copied. The name of the copied repository file is <domain-name>.latest.rps in the Standby host.

    If the directory is not present in the Active host, Failover Manager writes an error in the action log file and continues to do further backup. If the directory is not present in the Standby host, it creates that directory before copying the content.

    Backup actions will be suspended during discovery in the Active host and also during the saving of the repository file in the Active host.

    The StrictSitemod parameter mentioned in the failover.conf file controls strict validation of the paths of SM_SITEMOD and SM_WRITEABLE directories on the Active and Standby hosts. The default value of this parameter is TRUE.

    When StrictSitemod is set to TRUE,

  • The paths of SM_SITEMOD directories and SM_WRITEABLE directory on the Active host are verified with the paths on the Standby host.

  • If the path of a directory matches, files from the directory location on the Active host are copied to the same location on the Standby host.

  • If the path of a directory does not match, the directory is ignored and files from the other directories whose path matches are copied from Active to Standby host.

  • If there are multiple SM_SITEMOD directories and the none of the paths match, the backup action fails.

  • If the path of the SM_WRITEABLE directory does not match, the backup action fails.

    When StrictSitemod is set to FALSE,

  • The paths of SM_SITEMOD directories and SM_WRITEABLE directory are not verified.

  • Files from the default SM_SITEMOD directory at <BASEDIR>/local on the Active host are copied to the same location on the Standby host.

    Note:

    The SM_SITEMOD directories that you have defined are not copied from Active to Standby host.

  • The RPS files from the SM_WRITEABLE directory on the Active host are copied to the SM_WRITEABLE directory located anywhere on the Standby host.

    In general, when a new device is discovered in the topology, it is automatically saved to the topology. In this case, you need not manually save the topology. However, you need to manually save the topology in the following scenarios:

  • You make some changes in Polling and Thresholds, and then do a manual reconfigure.

  • You have managed or unmanaged a device or carried out some other changes.

    Manually saving the topology enables the backup script in failover to transfer the updated topology with minimum or no delta. The backup script is invoked after the specified time interval is exceeded (BackupInterval parameter value) and after every topology save.

    Note:

    If the topology is empty or you have started a new component, then during the backup action for failover, an error message is displayed in the log. However, this message will not be displayed during the next backup action as soon as you discover the topology.