In this video, we demonstrate the process to fail over to a disaster recovery or Dr fluid FSNS cluster once failed over we'll add new data and then fail back to the primary cluster. First, after expanding the outbound replica containers under NAS replication on the primary cluster, we're able to see that we have already replicated our NAS container to the Dr cluster. Note that this container has a share present on it which contains a single folder and a text file.
Next we open a separate windows explorer session, pointing it to the client access IP address of the DR cluster. At this time, there are no shares present since by default, they're hidden on destination NAS containers. If at any time you'd like to verify the presence of the data on the Dr cluster begin by going to the replication tab of the Dr clusters group manager interface. After expanding NAS replications inbound replica containers, list, select the container whose contents you would like to view and click to enable read only access. After refreshing the windows explorer session that is connected to the DR clusters, client access address.
We now see that the share and its data are present note that at this time, the share is read only since we have not performed an actual fail over of the cluster resources. In the event of a failure of the primary cluster, we begin the fail over process by promoting the replicated container from within the DR site's group manager interface, confirm the ability to demote the replica container so that after completion of repairs of the primary site, we can revert production access back to the original cluster.
We leave the option to apply host access configuration enabled as otherwise share export and quota configurations would not be applied to the promoted NAS container. Once these steps are completed, the replicated NAS container disappears from the list of inbound replicas and is now found under the local containers list of the Dr cluster. The NAS container has been promoted and is ready for user access. Now it is possible to create new folders and files on the Dr cluster.
When repairs have been completed on the primary site, the option to fail back to primary will perform all necessary functions to revert back to the original cluster. The process will ask for credentials for the primary sites cluster which will typically be the GRP admin administrative account. Once the process begins, we can view the completion status of each stage of the fail back procedure in the fail back operations list at the bottom of group manager.
This process can take some time as it involves sending any changes which occurred on the promoted Dr Nas container back to the primary cluster. After completion, the promoted local container on the Dr Nas cluster will return to its original location as an inbound replica container, disabling read only access will once again prevent data access by clients connecting to the Dr clusters, client access addresses. After verifying that the NAS container is once again available as a local container on the primary site, we have successfully completed the fail back procedure.
