VCS Cluster Question

[Justin Ferello]

Hey all,

We have two VCS Expressways in a cluster.  One VCS is on one Internet circuit and the other is on a separate circuit from another provider.  The Internet provider for the one VCS sucks for video, its only needed as a backup circuit.  Can I put this VCS into maintenance mode until the circuit feeding the other VCS fails?  This way, all registrations are forced to the VCS with the best Internet circuit.

If the one VCS is in maintenance mode, will it still sync within the cluster?       

Thank you,

Justin Ferello
Technical Support Specialist
KBZ, a Cisco Authorized Distributor
http://www.kbz.com
e/v: justin.ferello@kbz.com      

[Patrick Sparkman]

I'd like to know the answer to this as well.  We have a different situation, but putting one of our cluster peers into maintenance mode could help alleviate an issue were having until a permanent fix can be worked out.

[Justin Ferello]

Patrick,

Thanks voting this up

This would also be a great way to do an Active/Passive cluster instead of Active/Active

Anyone from Cisco?

Where is Alok when you need him

Thank you,

Justin Ferello
Technical Support Specialist
KBZ, a Cisco Authorized Distributor
http://www.kbz.com
e/v: justin.ferello@kbz.com

[Patrick Sparkman · Accepted solution]

Justin -

I went ahead an put one of our VCS peers into maintenance mode earlier today to get around an issue, and it is still enabled to this point.  Checking the clustering page on the master VCS, it shows the peer is still active.  With replication status of succeeded, even up to this very minute.  It looks like everything is fine, but like you'd it would be good to hear from someone official.  Even if we do force one peer to essentially be in a passive state until we bring it out of maintenance ourselves to become active again.  Unlike a 6 peer cluster where the last two will automatically become active when one of the primary 4 peers goes down.

[Justin Ferello]

Patrick,

Thanks for the taking the plunge and testing this and reporting back with your findings.

Thanks,

Justin

[Alok Jaiswal · Accepted solution]

Justin,

Even though you put the server in maintenance mode the cluster sysnchronization continues.

As Patrick mentioned in the previous note the page shows active. you can do another test if you want. put a server in maintenance mode and create a zone or modify a rule on master server, when the next synchronization happen it will get replicated to VCS in maintenance mode.

I think it answers your query.

Regards

Alok

[Patrick Sparkman]

Alok Jaiswal wrote:
Justin,
Even though you put the server in maintenance mode the cluster sysnchronization continues. 
As Patrick mentioned in the previous note the page shows active. you can do another test if you want. put a server in maintenance mode and create a zone or modify a rule on master server, when the next synchronization happen it will get replicated to VCS in maintenance mode.
 I think it answers your query.
Regards
Alok

The last part of your comment Alok makes perfect sense, as everything I've looked at mentions that maintenance mode only affects device registrations and call attempts, mentions nothing about synchronization between cluster peers or the like outside of the two things I just mentioned it does affect.

Patrick

[Justin Ferello]

Alok,

Thank you for the official "Cisco" confirmation on this.

Thank you,

Justin Ferello
Technical Support Specialist
KBZ, a Cisco Authorized Distributor
http://www.kbz.com
e/v: justin.ferello@kbz.com

[Martin Koch]

Depending on how the setup looks like (like plenty of (chaning) search rules, transforms, zones, ...)

If could also be worth looking into not even let them run as a cluster but just as a lower priority.

But it all depends on the deployment.

Is can be handy to lower the priority for the SRV records for this inactive VCS.

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