SFHA Solutions 6.0.1: About managing Virtual Business Services (VBS) using VOM and the VBS command line interface

VBS, introduced in the Veritas Storage Foundation and High Availability (SFHA) 6.0 release, is a feature that represents a multi-tier application as a single consolidated entity in Veritas Operations Manager (VOM). It builds on the high availability and disaster recovery features provided by Symantec products, such as, Veritas Cluster Server (VCS) and Symantec ApplicationHA. VBS enables administrators to improve operational efficiency of managing a heterogeneous multi-tier application.

You can manage VBS from the VOM graphical user interface and the VBS command line interface (CLI).

When you install SFHA, the VBS installation packages, VRTSvbs and VRTSsfmh, are automatically installed on the nodes. From the VOM interface, you can define a VBS that consists of service groups from multiple clusters. You can also use the VBS CLI to perform back-end operations on that VBS.

The clustering solutions that are offered today can only manage applications running on the same operating system. So, deploying the clustering solutions for a multi-tier, cross-platform setup can be difficult to manage.

VBS can work across a heterogeneous environment to enable IT organizations to ensure that the applications across tiers can be made highly available. A typical multi-tier environment comprises of a database on a UNIX server, applications running in aKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) on a Linux server, and a Web server on a VMware virtual machine.

VBS works across the heterogeneous environment to communicate between local operating systems to see the end-to-end state of multi-tier applications and to control start and stop ordering of the applications. With VBS there are relationships between tiers that you can customize to fit your environment. You can set up policies for the events that result in a failure or for the specific events that happen on tiers. For example, you can set up a policy that restarts the application service groups when the database service group fails over to another node.

Supported VOM versions for VBS versions:

• VOM version 4.1 supports VBS in SFHA  release 6.0
• VOM version 5.0 supports VBS in SFHA release 6.0.1

For more information about VBS features, components, and workflow, see:

• Features of Virtual Business Services
• Sample Virtual Business Service configuration
• Virtualization support in Virtual Business Services
• About the Veritas Operations Manager policy checks for Virtual Business Services
• About the Virtual Business Services components
• Virtual Business Services workflow
• Support matrix for VBS
• Prerequisites for using VBS Availability Add-on

 You can configure and manage a VBS created in VOM by using the VOM VBS Availability Add-on utility. You can also manage it from the VBS CLI.

The VBS Availability Add-on utility enables you to:

• Start or stop service groups associated to a VBS.
• Establish service group relationships that decide the order in which service groups are brought online or taken offline.
• Decide the reaction of application components in each tier when an event fault occurs on a tier.
• Recover a VBS from a remote site when a disaster occurs.

For more information about installing the VBS add-on, packages, and configuring a VBS using VOM, see:

• Installing Veritas Operations Manager Virtual Business Services Availability Add-on
• Installing the VRTSvbs package using Veritas Operations Manager
• Configuring a Virtual Business Service

For more information on managing VBS using VOM and the VBS command-line, see:

• Operations using Veritas Operations Manager and command line
• Starting and stopping Virtual Business Services
• Viewing the overview of a Virtual Business Service
• Viewing the Virtual Business Service status from the command line
• Enabling fault management for a Virtual Business Service
• Disabling fault management for a Virtual Business Service
• Fault management overview

For more information on VBS commands, troubleshooting issues, and recovery operations, see:

• Virtual Business Services commands
• Troubleshooting Virtual Business Services
• Virtual Business Services log files

For more information on managing VBS using VOM and the VBS command line, see:

Virtual Business Service-Availability User's Guide

Virtual Business Services documentation for other SFHA releases can be found on the SORT website.