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WCS and High Availability

schuetzm
Level 1
Level 1

Hi,

what are the requirements to run active and standby WCS-server in different locations?

I found the following note from Release 7.0.172.0

"A reliable high-speed wired network must exist between the primary WCS and its backup WCS"

Thanks in advance

Matthias

7 Replies 7

George Stefanick
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

You will want to make sure you have a reliable link between both boxes. I have a set up today with one box on the east coast and one on the west and it works just fine with a T1. I dont think I ever seen a specific spec sheet on the exact specs.

I do know there is a heart beat between the boxes. When that is lost, the seconadry kicks in.

"Satisfaction does not come from knowing the solution, it comes from knowing why." - Rosalind Franklin
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Rob Simkins
Level 1
Level 1

Just a note for you guys... when testing the failover, if you can't physically shut your server down and try stopping the WCS service it won't failover automatically by default.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/wcs/7.0/configuration/guide/7_0main.html#wp1072642

I've seen WCS occasionally lock up and need to be manually stop/started to come back to life.  If this happens, the auto failover isn't actually automatic unless you run the command "nmsadmin.bat -switchover stop".

Surely auto failover on service down makes more sense than failover on server down? 

Anyone aware of any reasoning behind this not being default the behaviour?

LOL.... I did know that Iblogged about it. I LOL becuase i wonder the same thing!

http://www.my80211.com/cisco-wcs/

"Satisfaction does not come from knowing the solution, it comes from knowing why." - Rosalind Franklin
___________________________________________________________

Nice, I'm now following you on twitter and feedly - consider me a tech stalker...

Also.... If you are upgrading a pair of primary WCS servers you'll need to merge all controllers onto a single SNMP community that covers both WCS servers.  This is because the secondary WCS inherits the community string from the primary. 

What happens when several primary servers are on different subnets?  You need to open up the netmask on the SNMP community config. This could end up being 0.0.0.0 if you have a weird setup.  If you dont do this the controllers wont speak to the secondary WCS and will appear down...

Security concern?

I always lead with SNMP v3 so we limited the risk a bit rather then using 1 and 2 ...

"Satisfaction does not come from knowing the solution, it comes from knowing why." - Rosalind Franklin
___________________________________________________________

Good point! I've just migrated, pretty simple task

Matthias - The traffic you need to worry about is going to be the sync and failover/failback.  This could be the full WCS database backup file which is usually 100mb+.  I'm not sure what the sync period is though.

My database takes about 20 minutes ... its SLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW

"Satisfaction does not come from knowing the solution, it comes from knowing why." - Rosalind Franklin
___________________________________________________________
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