Summary

This Knowledgebase article provides information about how to configure application services in Neverfail Continuity Engine. 

More Information 

Services page

The Engine Management Service Services page shows services specified by plug-ins or by the user, and any services related by dependency.

View the Status of Services

The status of all protected services is displayed on the Services page.The status shows both the target and actual state for the Primary, Secondary, and if installed, Tertiary servers and the Failure Counts for all servers.

The target state of protected services can be specified for the active and passive server(s), and is typically Running on the active and Stopped on the passive(s). Services are protected when they are in a Running state in the Engine Management Service or set to Automatic in Windows Services, and otherwise are logged as unprotected. Services depending on protected services are managed (for example, started and stopped) by Neverfail Continuity Engine but not monitored (for example, not restarted if stopped by some external agency). Services upon which protected services depend are monitored (for example, restarted if stopped) but not managed (for example, not stopped if protected applications are stopped).

Adding a Service

To protect a service that was not automatically added by Neverfail Continuity Engine during installation, the service must be added through the Engine Management Service or Neverfail Advanced Management Client and be in a Running state.

To add a service:

1. Click Add at the lower right of the pane.
2. Select the service and set the Target State on Active and Target State on Passive values. Normally, the Target State on Active is set to Running and the Target State on Passive is set to Stopped. User defined services configured with a target state of Running on both active and passive servers do not stop when Stop Applications is clicked.
3. To let Neverfail Continuity Engine manage the starting and stopping of the service, select the check box. To make Neverfail Continuity Engine monitor the state of the service, select the Monitor State check box. Neverfail Continuity Engine also lets you assign three sequential tasks to perform in the event of failure. Task options include the following:
   • Restart Applications – Restarts the protected application. 
   • Switchover – Initiates a switchover to the currently passive server. 
   • Recover Service – Restarts the service. 
   • Log Warning – Adds an entry to the logs. 
   • A User Defined task, created in Tasks page, as a Rule Action task type. 
   • vSphere Integration\RestartVM – Cleanly shuts down and restarts the Windows OS on the target VM. 
   • vSphere Integration\TriggerMigrateVM – Depending on the parameters specified it can be vMotion, enhanced vMotion or storage vMotion. 
   • vSphere Integration\TriggerMigrateVMandRestartApplications – Same as TriggerMigrateVM + application restart. 
   • vSphere Integration\TriggervSphereHaVmReset – Communicates with vCenter Server to reset the virtual machine, but does so using the vSphere HA App Monitoring mechanism. This is potentially more robust, but requires the VM to be on an vSphere HA cluster with Integrate with vSphere HA Application Monitoring enabled in the VmAdaptor plug-in settings.
     
     Note: Rule Action tasks are additional user defined tasks previously created by the user and must be created on the active Neverfail Continuity Engine server
4. Assign a task to each of the three failure options and after all selections are made, click OK to dismiss the dialog.
   
   Note: When dependent services are involved, actions to take on failure should match the protected service. 

If a service fails and the failure option is set to Restart Applications, all applications are restarted. 

Edit a Service

To change the options of a protected service, select the service listed in the pane and perform the following steps:

1. Click Edit at the lower right of the pane. The Edit Service dialog appears, which provides a subset of same options available when a new service is added.
2. After making modifications, click OK to accept the changes.
3. To unprotect a service and stop monitoring the service, click on the Services tab. Select the service and click Edit.
4. Clear the Manage Starting and Stopping and Monitor State check boxes, and then click OK. 

Configure Service Recovery Options for All Protected Services

Neverfail Continuity Engine provides the ability to configure the Service Recovery Options for all services that are protected from one central location. 

1. Navigate to the Neverfail Advanced Management Client Applications: Services page.
2. Click the Edit All button. Select the action to take for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd instance of failure. The same actions selected here will be automatically configured for each protected service.

Remove a Service

To remove a service, select the service in the pane and perform the following steps:

1. Click Remove at the lower right of the pane. A confirmation message appears.
2. Click Yes to remove the selected service from the protected list. Click No to close the message without removing anything.

Note: If you remove a protected service that was automatically added by a plug-in (not user defined), the service will be re-added to the protected list the next time the Protected Service Discovery task runs.

Applies To

Neverfail Continuity Engine

Related Information

None 

KBID-2925