Controlled Failover
Data Backup and Recovery Solutions / Delphix Replication / Controlled Failover

This topic describes the process of failing over a replica. Objects stored in a replica are read-only, and failing over a replica moves the replicated objects to the live system. After a failover, all of the objects will appear in the system as if they had been created locally.

The retention policy is not replicated.  As such, and objects that are failed over will inherit the default retention policy(of 1 week).  As such, if the retention policy on the replication source was a longer duration this could cause the inadvertent removal of snapshots.  Its recommended to check the default retention policy and adjust as necessary until the retention policies from the replication source can be added.

Prerequisites

  • A Delphix system that contains a replica is required.
  • For an overview of what replicas are and what failover implies, see Replicas and Failover.
  • For more information on configuring replication, refer to the Configuring Replication topics.

Procedure

  1. Locate the replica to failover.

    1. Click System.

    2. Select Replication.

      In the Received Replicas section, you will see the list of replicas. Each replica has a default name that is the hostname of the source that sent the update. If you wish, you can customize these names. Each replica will list the databases and environments it contains.

      If this replica is the result of a replication update, check to see whether or not the source Delphix appliance is still active. If it is still active, then disable any dSource or VDB that is part of the replica being failed over to ensure that only one instance is enabled. You can disable dSources and VDBs by selecting Datasets, finding the appropriate database, select Disable. After disabling the objects, navigate to System > Replication and click Replicate Now to get the most recent data to the target environment. If any scripts are accessing the engine, then you must repoint those scripts to the replication target environment to avoid VDBs from being started up in the old replication source environment.

  2. Click Failover and a confirmation dialog will appear (see screenshot "failover-confirm"). To accept the default failover behavior, confirm the dialog.

    This will pause while the replica is failed over.

  3. When failover completes, the replica page will update.
  4. Apply any configuration changes that are required to customize the objects for the system. This might include updating object states such as IP addresses, mount paths, or credentials. For more details, see the Replicas and Failover topic.
  5. Enable the environments that were failed over.
    1. Click Manage.
    2. Select Environments. The environments that were failed over will be disabled.
    3. From the Actions menu (...) select Enable.
  6. Refresh any environments that were consolidated during failover.
    1. Click the Refresh icon for each affected environment.

  7. Enable the dSources and VDBs that were failed over.

    1. Click Manage

    2. Select Datasets.

    3. Select the desired database.

    4. From the Actions menu (...) select Enable.

      Policies and users are not replicated. Be sure to recreate them after you failover.

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