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Configuring failover server

"Downtime" is a threat to every enterprise, which would affect productivity. In order to overcome these challenges, you can opt for the   "Failover Service". You can configure a secondary server, which will act as a standby server, whenever the primary server fails. This will ensure, that the desktop management system is not aborted due to any hardware surprises. This document will explain to you the steps involved in configuring the failover service. This feature is supported for computers running Windows XP and later versions.

Prerequisites

You need to ensure that the below-listed criteria are met, before configuring the failover service:

  • License for Failover
  • Remote MSSQL Database
  • Remote Repositories
    • Patch Store
  • Static IP Address

Failover is supported only for MSSQL database. You should have purchased the license for failover and uploaded it in the product. You need to ensure that the database, patch store, and the software repository are installed in a remote computer. This will ensure that the database, patch store, and software repository are not affected when one of the servers is down. You should also ensure that the IP Address, that you configure for the primary server and the secondary server is "Static". So, that the communication will reach the appropriate static IP address.

 
  • Ensure that the primary server and the secondary server belongs to the same domain and are located in the same subnet.  If you have configured NAT settings to redirect all communications to a local IP, you will have to ensure that the redirected communications reach the virtual IP address.

 Configuring Failover Server

You can configure failover service from here: web console -> Admin - > Failover Server. You will have to specify the Primary and Secondary Server's IP address. You will have to provide a virtual IP address, which could actually be updated to the agents. Every communication from the agent, the distribution server will reach the virtual IP. If you have configured NAT settings to redirect all communications to a local IP, you will have to ensure that the redirected communications reach the virtual IP address.

All request that reaches this virtual IP will be redirected to the primary server, whenever the primary server is not reachable, the communications will be taken to the secondary server. The secondary server will periodically sync all the data from the primary server so that it is up-to-date. You can also configure settings to receive mail notifications, whenever one of the servers is down, or not reachable.  Follow the steps mentioned below to configure Failover server:

  1. Clone Server components to the secondary server
  2. Configuring Secondary Server
  3. Activate Secondary Server

Clone Server components to the secondary server

Perform the following steps on the computer, where the primary Central Server is installed:

  1. Stop Central server
  2. Navigate to Server Installed Directory
    3.  
    • To know the exact location of your "Server Installed Directory", open the web console and navigate to Support> Installation information.
  3. Execute "Clone_Primary_Server.bat", to clone and create a zip folder which contains the server components.
  4. A new zip file "Product.zip", will be created in the "<Installation_Directory>/ManageEngine/DesktopCentral_Server>" folder.

Configure Secondary Server

 
  • Ensure that the secondary server does have permissions to synchronize the data from the primary server and vice versa

You will have to enable the following settings:

  • Access to the computer where the Primary & Secondary Central Server are installed.
  • Permission for the admin user to manage both the Primary & Secondary Central Server.

The below-mentioned steps should be performed on the primary server first and the same should be performed on the secondary server during activation.

Steps for sharing

  1. Right click on the folder and choose Sharing tab.
  2. Click Advanced Sharing.
  3. Enable Share this Folder.
  4. Specify the name as ServerInstalledDirectory.
  5. Click Permissions.
  6. Click Add.
  7. Choose Object Types.
  8. Enable Computers.
  9. Click OK.
  10. Under Enter Object Name, specify the secondary server name and the username with Admin privileges.
  11. Click share permission and select user and computer and ensure that Full Control is enabled.
  12. Click OK, to complete the process.
 
  • If the Central Server is installed in Windows 10 or Windows Server 2012 R2, you will have to ensure that the permissions are modified here, (Right click) Server Installed Directory folder -> Properties -> Security -> Edit Permissions -> Edit -> Add (add the name of the secondary server).

Activate Secondary Server

Perform the below-mentioned steps on the computer where the Secondary server is installed:

  1. Download the Configure_Failover_Server.bat from the product: web console -> Admin -> Failover Server.
  2. Open Command Prompt as an administrator and navigate to the location where you have downloaded the .bat file and execute Configure_Failover_Server.bat <PrimaryServer_IP>
  3. Repeat the steps for sharing, as mentioned above on the secondary server and ensure that you provide the name of the computer, where the primary server is installed, in step 10.

You can now see that the server components are replicated to the secondary server.