When allocating cluster resources to support an HA installation, consider the following requirements:
(Conditional) For HA appliance installations, ensure that the Sentinel HA appliance with a valid license is available. The Sentinel HA appliance is an ISO appliance that includes the following packages:
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP3 operating system
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server High Availability Extension (SLES HAE) package
Sentinel software (including HA rpm)
(Conditional) For traditional HA installations, ensure that the Sentinel installer (TAR file) and the SUSE Linux High Availability Extension (SLE HAE) ISO image with valid licenses are available.
If you are using the SLES operating system with kernel version 3.0.101 or later, you must manually load the watchdog driver in the computer. To find the appropriate watchdog driver for your computer hardware, contact your hardware vendor. To load the watchdog driver, perform the following:
In the command prompt, run the following command to load the watchdog driver in the current session:
/sbin/modprobe -v --ignore-install <watchdog driver name>
Add the following line to the /etc/init.d/boot.local file to ensure that the computer automatically loads the watchdog driver at every boot time:
/sbin/modprobe -v --ignore-install <watchdog driver name>
Each cluster node that hosts the Sentinel services must meet the requirements specified in Section 5.0, Meeting System Requirements.
Ensure that sufficient shared storage is available for the Sentinel data and application.
Ensure that you use a virtual IP address for the services that can be migrated from node to node on failover.
A shared storage device that meets the performance and size characteristics as documented in Section 5.0, Meeting System Requirements. The exemplary solution will use a standard SUSE Linux VM configured with iSCSI Targets as shared storage.
Minimum two cluster nodes that meet the resource requirements for running Sentinel in the customer environment. The exemplary solution will use two SUSE Linux VMs.
A method for the cluster nodes to communicate with the shared storage, such as FibreChannel for a SAN. The exemplary solution will use a dedicated IP address to connect to the iSCSI Target.
A virtual IP that can be migrated from one node to another node in a cluster to serve as the external IP address for Sentinel.
At least one IP address per cluster node for internal cluster communications. The exemplary solution will use a simple unicast IP address, but multicast is preferred for production environments.