Configuring Policy and Distribution Services with Novell Cluster Services ensures high availability of Tiered Electronic Distribution (TED). Installing a TED Distributor and Subscriber in a cluster ensures the transmission and reception of policies and software. Installing the Policy/Distribution database in a cluster ensures that the database is always available when Distributors and Subscribers need to log Distribution processing information. Installing the Web components and supporting software in a cluster ensures that you can always monitor and manage the distribution process throughout your network.
The Installation Wizard walks you through installing the Policy and Distribution Services software for Distributors, Subscribers, and the Policy/Distribution database.
To install Policy and Distribution Services in a cluster:
Follow the instructions provided in Installing Policy and Distribution Services on NetWare and Windows Servers , keeping in mind the following cluster-specific details:
IMPORTANT: You can install only one instance of Policy and DIstribution Services (one Distributor and/or one Subscriber) in a cluster because Policy and Distribution Services treats a cluster as if it were a single server.
You can also select non-clustered servers at the same time you are installing to a cluster.
IMPORTANT: Do not use double-byte or extended characters in any part of an installation path, including a NetWare volume name.
The Installation Wizard installs the Policy and Distribution Services software on the specified cluster-enabled volume. From that location, the Distributor Agent, Subscriber Agent, and Policy/Package Agent will be able to run on any of the nodes in the cluster. If the node where they are running goes down, they automatically fail over to another node in the cluster.
The Installation Wizard also updates the load and unload scripts associated with the Cluster object, which makes the failover/failback process possible.
To start the TED agents for the first time, offline the cluster and then online it again.
This causes the clustering software to reread the updated load script and load the TED agents.