Managing Failover Domains

Overview#

A failover domain groups compute resources that can host and recover virtual servers with High Availability (HA) protection. Each compute resource can belong to only one failover domain at a time. HA evacuates virtual servers only to compute resources within the same failover domain.

To view and manage your failover domains, go to High Availability > Failover Domains. The Failover Domains interface lists all configured failover domains, including the number of compute resources in each domain, their locations, storage types, assigned IP blocks, and active status.

Create a Failover Domain#

You must create and configure a failover domain to use HA.

To create a failover domain, perform the following steps:

1. Go to High Availability > Failover Domains.

2. Click Add Domain. The New Failover Domain interface appears.

3. Enter a name for the failover domain. The name must be unique. Optionally, enter a description. The description can span multiple lines and contain up to 10,000 characters.

4. Select a location.

5. Select the network storage at the location you chose. SolusVM displays a list of all compute resources that match your location and storage selection.

6. Select at least two compute resources to include in the failover domain.

7. Click Next.

8. Select IP blocks.

   Note:

   All compute resources in a failover domain must use matching IP address blocks. Mismatched or incompatible IP ranges can cause virtual servers to lose network connectivity after a failover. Verify that all IP blocks you select can route traffic to the internet. When you click Create, SolusVM applies these IP blocks to all compute resources in the failover domain.

9. Click Create.

After you create a failover domain, you can remove compute resources from it until it has one or no members. To delete the failover domain, remove all compute resources first.

Manage a Failover Domain#

To manage a failover domain, go to High Availability > Failover Domains and click the domain. The failover domain page displays a health and resource summary for that domain.

The summary includes the following information:

• Compute Resources — Shows the total number of compute resources in the failover domain and their status. For more information, see High Availability Protection Status.
• RAM — Shows the total RAM across all compute resources in the domain and their status:
  • Online RAM
  • Offline RAM
  • RAM in use by HA-protected virtual servers
  • RAM in use by non-HA virtual servers
  • Free RAM
• Storage — Shows the failover domain’s shared storage and its free space. Click the storage name to manage storage for this domain.
• IP Blocks — Lists the IP blocks assigned to the failover domain. Click IP Blocks to manage them.
• Recent activities — Shows the number of evacuation events that occurred in the last seven days. Click the arrow to go to the Activities interface.

Below the summary, the compute resource table lists all compute resources in the failover domain with the following columns:

Disable a Failover Domain#

You can disable HA for a specific failover domain in two ways, without removing its configuration.

From the Failover Domains list:

1. Go to High Availability > Failover Domains.
2. Locate the failover domain and set its Active toggle to inactive.

From the failover domain detail page:

1. Go to High Availability > Failover Domains.
2. Click the failover domain you want to disable.
3. In the upper right corner, set the Active toggle to inactive.

Remove a Compute Resource from a Failover Domain#

When you remove a compute resource from a failover domain, the compute resource stays in the cluster, but HA no longer protects it or its virtual servers.

Before you remove a compute resource, verify that it does not host any virtual servers with HA enabled. Disable HA on those virtual servers or migrate them to another compute resource first. If HA-protected virtual servers remain on the compute resource, SolusVM cancels the operation and displays the following message:

Compute resource "<hostname>" still has high-availability VMs. Disable high availability on them or migrate them to another compute resource before removing it from the failover domain.

To remove a compute resource from a failover domain, perform the following steps:

1. Go to High Availability > Failover Domains.
2. Click the failover domain that contains the compute resource.
3. In the compute resource table, find the compute resource and click the Exclude from domain icon.
4. Confirm the action.

Delete a Failover Domain#

To delete a failover domain, perform the following steps:

1. Go to High Availability > Failover Domains.
2. Remove all compute resources from the failover domain.
3. Locate the failover domain and click the Delete failover domain icon.