Sorry for the x-posting, but I believe this is relevant.

We have 32-bit Sybase 12.5.x on Solaris SPARC 8.
The binaries are installed on local disks, but the databases are
installed on raw partitions on a disk array.
These raw partitions were created via DiskSuite.
There are actually 2 disk arrays, one array being the mirror of the
other via DiskSuite.

How should I go about moving from simple metadevices to a diskset ?

The link below describes what to do when you are starting from scratch:

http://www.sybase.com/detail?id=2855


But what about if you already an existing installation ?

Anthony Mandic wrote:
"HA" a product ?
or HA as in setup ?

Basically, what I want to achieve is 2 hosts sharing the same disk array.

From what I understand with DiskSuite, only 1 host can own a diskset,
which is logical, since you really dont want to have 2 hosts both
writing to the raw devices on the disk array. Thus, only 1 host is
actively owning and reading / writing to the disk array at any given
time. But one that one host fails, I want either to:

1) Manually ( is this possible? ) switch over to the other host attached
to the array, starting up ASE, etc ...

Manually as in probably changing the owner of the diskset, etc ..

OR

2) The other host automatically take over. With automatic, I presume
this is where clustering comes in, so that hosts connected to the
cluster don't see any difference connecting to either host, since they
connect to the cluster instead of the host.


With Option [1]:
*) Is this possible ?
*) Do I still need Sun Clustering ?
*) I presume I dont need any other additional Sybase software. How do
you upgrade ASE in this case ?

With Option [2]:
*) I presume you really need Clustering, both Sun Cluster software and
some Sybase software ( e.g.: HA Sybase Agent ... is this Sun or Sybase
software ? )
*) How do you upgrade ASE on each node of the cluster ( assuming a
2-node cluster ) ?

Anthony Mandic wrote:
"HA" a product ?
or HA as in setup ?

Basically, what I want to achieve is 2 hosts sharing the same disk array.

From what I understand with DiskSuite, only 1 host can own a diskset,
which is logical, since you really dont want to have 2 hosts both
writing to the raw devices on the disk array. Thus, only 1 host is
actively owning and reading / writing to the disk array at any given
time. But one that one host fails, I want either to:

1) Manually ( is this possible? ) switch over to the other host attached
to the array, starting up ASE, etc ...

Manually as in probably changing the owner of the diskset, etc ..

OR

2) The other host automatically take over. With automatic, I presume
this is where clustering comes in, so that hosts connected to the
cluster don't see any difference connecting to either host, since they
connect to the cluster instead of the host.


With Option [1]:
*) Is this possible ?
*) Do I still need Sun Clustering ?
*) I presume I dont need any other additional Sybase software. How do
you upgrade ASE in this case ?

With Option [2]:
*) I presume you really need Clustering, both Sun Cluster software and
some Sybase software ( e.g.: HA Sybase Agent ... is this Sun or Sybase
software ? )
*) How do you upgrade ASE on each node of the cluster ( assuming a
2-node cluster ) ?

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 17:10:04 +1000, Anthony Mandic <am@*t.com.au>
wrote:

<---snip--->

There is only one problem with migrating an existing hosts metadevices
to a diskset. When you initialise a disk into a metaset, disksuite
trashes the existing vtoc layout and places a metadb on one of the
slices which is shared between the 2 systems, and moves all the free
space to slice 0. Which kinda trashes any information that you may
have had on those 20Mb or so where the metadb is placed.

Oh, although yes it is possible, functional and can be done with a
couple of shell scripts controlling it, to use metasets in failing a
database over from one system to another without Sun Cluster, you
better make sure that there are no support issues from Sun reguarding
that type of system setup.

Mark