LAN failover, # of pairs of failover one can have...

[John Koska]

Can one have more than one LAN failover set?

How many LAN failover sets can one have?

Is it hardware dependent on the model of AlphaServer, or is there a software dependency?

I've searched the documentation and herein, but either I missed it or it is not covered.

I have formed a working LLA0: LAN failover device with two Gigabit Ethernet adapters, but I may want another LL device to have different IP address and subnet. I understand at latter versions of OpenVMS one can do VLAN and set priorities on the adapters, but we are not there yet.

We use Multinet 5.1 on this GS160 with OpenVMS 7.3-2.

Thanks in advance,
:) jck

[Andy Bustamante · Accepted solution]

You can have multiple LAN failover sets. I have a system with LLA and LLB logical devices and run FAILsafe IP over the two interfaces. I'm not aware of an upper limit, but multiple LL devices are available. The upper limit may be determined by the number of PCI slots and available NICs.


Andy

[John Koska]

That was what I was looking for, almost exactly. It does not address the upper limits, but it at least gets me to where I want to go.

Thank you very much. Points assigned or will be soon.

:) jck

[Volker Halle]

John,

the maximum no. of LAN failover devices is most likely 26 - due to the controller letters (a...z). This is documented for VLAN devices (VLc) in the V8.3 release notes, but I have not found an equivalent documentation for LAN failover devices (LLc).

Volker.

[Rick Dyson]

Can I interject a related question here?

I have v7.3-2 and run FailSAFE-IP across 4 NICs smoothly. However, I recently found that I forgot about an old LAT connection that does not fail-over when I loose my primary GbE board and switch to the secondary.

I believe I have to setup what you were talking about here, "LAN failover", too. Correct? I currently have EW and EI devices. It sounds like I need to learn how to configure these logical "LL" devices and then re-teach FailSAFE-IP to use them instead of the EWA/B and EIA/B devices?

Do I have this right? If so, it does not sound like I would be able to do this without some downtime...

Rick

[Andy Bustamante]

Rick,

You can either configure LAT over multiple adapters or you move to LAN failover. Adding a LAT service may be the easiest option if scheduling downtime is an issue.

Volume 2 of the System Manager's Manual covers LAT and LAN failover, http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/82FINAL/aa-pv5nj-tk/aa-pv5nj-tk.HTMl

Andy

[Rick Dyson]

Thank you very much Andy!

Follow up:

If I needed no interuption of a LAT connection (custom app OPS terminal), I would have to implement the LAN failover, right?

If I just setup LAT on multiple NICs it will allow a user to reconnect and continuing to work, right? But when the initial circuit to the active NIC went down, it would terminate the LAT connection to the remote terminal.

We have had a couple instances where a network switch has failed and my secondary NIC took over. Fine for all the IP connected users but we have a special OPS terminal running apps that just uses LAT and it then gets disconnected in mid-operation. :(

This did not happen when I ran my old FDDI/GIGASwitch network, but I was forced to retire it and hand over all networking operation to the Network Group. :) Progress!

rick

[Andy Bustamante]

Rick,
You've got it down. LANfailover has the advantage of faster migration than FAILsafe IP and supports LAT/DECnet/Availability Manager's special protocol as well as TCPIP. Maintaining connections is a good thing.

Sit down with the networking guys and make sure they don't put all your traffic on one SuperSwitch(tm) with VLANs breaking up traffic. For reliable operation, you'll need to have redundant equipment without common components.

Andy

[John Koska]

Rick,

Maybe enabling virtual terminals can solve your problem.

:) jck

[Rick Dyson]

John,

Sorry to have stepped on your forum thread!

I would ask that you give nice points to Andy for me!

I will look into virtual terminals. I am also going to look hard at maybe retiring the LAT device. That would solve my problem the easy way...

Thanks!
Rick

[John Koska]

Sounds like it is time to close this thread.

:) jck

[John Koska]

time to close this thread.

thank you everyone.

:) jck