Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
I'm not so sure that a local telnet session would not resume after hibernation. I don't see any reason, as far as hibernating goes, why not. I'll be interested to know how you go with it. Cheers Stuart. -Original Message- From: Ross Ferris Sent: Thursday, 21 July 2011 10:33 To: U2 Users List Subject: Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation Perhaps once you have the initial user input, then fire the backend off as a phantom - if you need to check progress, write progress inf out to a file that you could LIST from another session Ross Ferris Stamina Software Visage Better by Design! Ross, thanks; the processes run in serial from a paragraph list - unfortunately it needs some user data inputs to start up thus the need for a telnet session on the server console to start it; we learnt years ago it's not good to run this lot from a networked session! No SAN / NAS - just a proper RAID system in the server itself. The console telnet session is my main concern though... I might have to see if we can start the processing off from a local UV shell; that might be more feasible than a local telnet session. Kind Regards Arnold Bosch IT Administrator Taeuber Corssen SWA (Pty) Ltd -- ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
Many thanks for the responses :) - lost of food for thought! George, Thanks; I'm aware of the UPS being able to trigger processes; in fact I'm working toward a control system that will in future help to handle such incidents; there is a handful of less critical servers involved as well. Wol - the hibernation is not set up yet; and yes; I want to suspend the entire server and operating system to disk - no VMs involved. Our UV server is the server least often shut down or rebooted; to the point where I actually delay OS patches for months on end; having a 100% uptime of 6 months on the UV server is nothing new here. In fact last week's incident was the first in 3 years where this server went down without pre-scheduled downtime. John, a generator is high on my priority list. Proposals and funding for one have been repeatedly rejected during the last couple of years by my directors. We have invested heavily in wireless technology in our warehouses in the last year though, and I'm busy preparing new proposals which should be more open to acceptance, as power outages will have a much bigger impact on our business operations than in the past. We don't have a large user base - just 120 users at present, but that incorporates a whopping 50% growth in just the last year; it's been playing havoc with capacity planning and licensing! Thanks Stuart - it looks like I'll have to do some testing then. I'll just install a copy of UV on a test machine and restore a backup to it and run the tests within the 30 day licensing grace period; I really feel Rocket wouldn't bust my butt for a once-off test like this. If anybody from Rocket reads this, I would appreciate your comments before I do it though. If/Once I'm happy with the software tests, I can do a controlled test on the actual server to check for hardware related issues. There are two other small UV sites here in Namibia that may also benefit from this localised experience - I'll post feedback on the test results. Ross, thanks; the processes run in serial from a paragraph list - unfortunately it needs some user data inputs to start up thus the need for a telnet session on the server console to start it; we learnt years ago it's not good to run this lot from a networked session! No SAN / NAS - just a proper RAID system in the server itself. The console telnet session is my main concern though... I might have to see if we can start the processing off from a local UV shell; that might be more feasible than a local telnet session. Kind Regards Arnold Bosch IT Administrator Taeuber Corssen SWA (Pty) Ltd -- - Disclaimer: This email message is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information which may be privileged and protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify us at our email address, delete this message and do not disclose the contents of this email message to any other person use it for any purpose or store or copy this email in any manner or form. Opinions, conclusions and other information contained in this email message that do not relate to our official business shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by us. We do not represent, warrant and/or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained or that this communication is free of errors, virus, interception or interference. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
We had serious power issues for a few years while the surrounding roads were under construction. The APC Automatic shutdown process built into the parachute software (donno if this is what it's still called) seemed to work well enough. We never had any issues with UniVerse shutting down or restarting afterwards. We utilize a generator for short outages, but usually the heat gets to a point where we have to shut down after a few hours anyway. -Original Message- From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org [mailto:u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Arnold Bosch Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 6:41 AM To: U2 Users List Subject: Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation Many thanks for the responses :) - lost of food for thought! George, Thanks; I'm aware of the UPS being able to trigger processes; in fact I'm working toward a control system that will in future help to handle such incidents; there is a handful of less critical servers involved as well. Wol - the hibernation is not set up yet; and yes; I want to suspend the entire server and operating system to disk - no VMs involved. Our UV server is the server least often shut down or rebooted; to the point where I actually delay OS patches for months on end; having a 100% uptime of 6 months on the UV server is nothing new here. In fact last week's incident was the first in 3 years where this server went down without pre-scheduled downtime. John, a generator is high on my priority list. Proposals and funding for one have been repeatedly rejected during the last couple of years by my directors. We have invested heavily in wireless technology in our warehouses in the last year though, and I'm busy preparing new proposals which should be more open to acceptance, as power outages will have a much bigger impact on our business operations than in the past. We don't have a large user base - just 120 users at present, but that incorporates a whopping 50% growth in just the last year; it's been playing havoc with capacity planning and licensing! Thanks Stuart - it looks like I'll have to do some testing then. I'll just install a copy of UV on a test machine and restore a backup to it and run the tests within the 30 day licensing grace period; I really feel Rocket wouldn't bust my butt for a once-off test like this. If anybody from Rocket reads this, I would appreciate your comments before I do it though. If/Once I'm happy with the software tests, I can do a controlled test on the actual server to check for hardware related issues. There are two other small UV sites here in Namibia that may also benefit from this localised experience - I'll post feedback on the test results. Ross, thanks; the processes run in serial from a paragraph list - unfortunately it needs some user data inputs to start up thus the need for a telnet session on the server console to start it; we learnt years ago it's not good to run this lot from a networked session! No SAN / NAS - just a proper RAID system in the server itself. The console telnet session is my main concern though... I might have to see if we can start the processing off from a local UV shell; that might be more feasible than a local telnet session. Kind Regards Arnold Bosch IT Administrator Taeuber Corssen SWA (Pty) Ltd -- - Disclaimer: This email message is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information which may be privileged and protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify us at our email address, delete this message and do not disclose the contents of this email message to any other person use it for any purpose or store or copy this email in any manner or form. Opinions, conclusions and other information contained in this email message that do not relate to our official business shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by us. We do not represent, warrant and/or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained or that this communication is free of errors, virus, interception or interference. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
Perhaps once you have the initial user input, then fire the backend off as a phantom - if you need to check progress, write progress inf out to a file that you could LIST from another session Ross Ferris Stamina Software Visage Better by Design! Ross, thanks; the processes run in serial from a paragraph list - unfortunately it needs some user data inputs to start up thus the need for a telnet session on the server console to start it; we learnt years ago it's not good to run this lot from a networked session! No SAN / NAS - just a proper RAID system in the server itself. The console telnet session is my main concern though... I might have to see if we can start the processing off from a local UV shell; that might be more feasible than a local telnet session. Kind Regards Arnold Bosch IT Administrator Taeuber Corssen SWA (Pty) Ltd -- ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
[U2] Universe Server Hibernation
Hi Has anybody ever tested how Universe behaves if the server is hibernated to disk ? Does it work and resume locally logged on sessions properly when the server is brought back up again? Obviously all network sessions will be aborted, but I'm not concerned about that. For background: We're running Universe 10.2.10 on Windows 2003 Enterprise X64 Server. Every night we have backups, a lot of batch update jobs and reporting that runs on the UV server. During this time period, there are no users connected to the system; only administrators can connect. Last week one night we had a power failure that outlasted the 4 hours run-time we have on our UPS, resulting in the server going down without a proper shutdown; fortunately not while in the middle of doing updates. I am concerned that something similar might happen while the system is processing; during the day it is OK as there are IT staff on-site that can make sure that user sessions are terminated as normally as possible and the server brought down gracefully during long-running outages. Why I'm asking about the hibernation: If there are local UV processes running, and the server is suspended to disk, will such processes carry on from where they left off when the server is brought up again ? - this could save us a lot of recovery time in such cases - rare as they are. Currently we have to look at at what point of the nightly jobs the server went down; if it was during backups no processing would be done; if it was during processing, we have to restore the backup to get the server back to a known state and so on. Kind regards Arnold Bosch IT Administrator Taeuber Corssen SWA (Pty) Ltd -- - Disclaimer: This email message is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information which may be privileged and protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify us at our email address, delete this message and do not disclose the contents of this email message to any other person use it for any purpose or store or copy this email in any manner or form. Opinions, conclusions and other information contained in this email message that do not relate to our official business shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by us. We do not represent, warrant and/or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained or that this communication is free of errors, virus, interception or interference. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
Not a direct answer to your question...but most UPS' have the ability to trigger a process when they are activated and/or about ready to lose the fight to stay alive to allow the server to do a gracefull shutdown via an automated process. But...you might be able to have the initial triggering when the UPS goes on, to send an email (text message) to people that you are on battery, to either come in and/or log in remotely, and do a shutdown. -Original Message- From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org [mailto:u2-users- boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Arnold Bosch Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 11:31 AM To: U2 Users List Subject: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation I am concerned that something similar might happen while the system is processing; during the day it is OK as there are IT staff on-site that can make sure that user sessions are terminated as normally as possible and the server brought down gracefully during long-running outages. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
On 19/07/11 16:30, Arnold Bosch wrote: Hi Has anybody ever tested how Universe behaves if the server is hibernated to disk ? Does it work and resume locally logged on sessions properly when the server is brought back up again? Obviously all network sessions will be aborted, but I'm not concerned about that. What's doing the hibernate? Do you mean like a laptop suspend? My first thought was you meant suspending a VM, but it doesn't read quite like that to me. Having been following this with the linux kernel (yes, that's not Windows, I know), if you mean suspending a VM of some sort, yes the system should just resume with minimal problems and carry on as if nothing has happened. I run XP in a VM on linux, and rarely have problems even though things like My Documents etc are on a (from XP's point of view) network disk. If, however, you really mean hibernate, with Windows flushing *itself* to disk, that's hard to get right. You also said without a proper shutdown, implying that it didn't hibernate, but crashed. Basically, unless it's totally controlled like saving a VM, I'd be very wary of something that may have saved itself after a power failure. Sounds like it might be worth investing in a checkpointing file store - checkpoint before overnight processing, then catch-up afterwards. If you've got a mirror you can break, you could break the mirror and back up one copy while the other copy is updating, before you resume the mirror. Cheers, Wol ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
Some thoughts... Depending on your budget, there is always the option of a properly installed generator that will pair with and charge your ups batteries. There are electricians and companies who can do this for you. http://www.cumminsonan.com/cm/products/propane http://www.nstpower.com/index.html We have had good luck with an onan propane generator over the past 10 years or so. Literally, all they've done to it is change the oil in the thing, and crank it once a month for 10 years. First the UPS kicks in, then while the server is running on batteries, the generator fires up and relieves the batteries, while the UPS and some other devices regulate the power. Of course, if you have 10 users and a budget of a few thousand a year, I'm guessing that would not be a good option for you. We have over 300 users and are running on AIX. Otherwise, I think those other options given by previous posters are your best bet: 1) Find a way to make the UPS gracefully shutdown your Universe server (along with Universe) I know APC has quite a bit of Windows based software along these lines for fairly cheap. 2) Virtualize the server and use some of those features. Don't expect Hyper-V to do it for you without a lot of third party help. On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 12:27 PM, Wols Lists antli...@youngman.org.ukwrote: On 19/07/11 16:30, Arnold Bosch wrote: Hi Has anybody ever tested how Universe behaves if the server is hibernated to disk ? Does it work and resume locally logged on sessions properly when the server is brought back up again? Obviously all network sessions will be aborted, but I'm not concerned about that. What's doing the hibernate? Do you mean like a laptop suspend? My first thought was you meant suspending a VM, but it doesn't read quite like that to me. Having been following this with the linux kernel (yes, that's not Windows, I know), if you mean suspending a VM of some sort, yes the system should just resume with minimal problems and carry on as if nothing has happened. I run XP in a VM on linux, and rarely have problems even though things like My Documents etc are on a (from XP's point of view) network disk. If, however, you really mean hibernate, with Windows flushing *itself* to disk, that's hard to get right. You also said without a proper shutdown, implying that it didn't hibernate, but crashed. Basically, unless it's totally controlled like saving a VM, I'd be very wary of something that may have saved itself after a power failure. Sounds like it might be worth investing in a checkpointing file store - checkpoint before overnight processing, then catch-up afterwards. If you've got a mirror you can break, you could break the mirror and back up one copy while the other copy is updating, before you resume the mirror. Cheers, Wol ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users -- John Thompson ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
I probably should clarify my statement about changing the oil... They obviously have had to replace batteries, and do other routine maintenance, similar to a car, but, anyway, hopefully you get the idea. On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 1:33 PM, John Thompson jthompson...@gmail.comwrote: Some thoughts... Depending on your budget, there is always the option of a properly installed generator that will pair with and charge your ups batteries. There are electricians and companies who can do this for you. http://www.cumminsonan.com/cm/products/propane http://www.nstpower.com/index.html We have had good luck with an onan propane generator over the past 10 years or so. Literally, all they've done to it is change the oil in the thing, and crank it once a month for 10 years. First the UPS kicks in, then while the server is running on batteries, the generator fires up and relieves the batteries, while the UPS and some other devices regulate the power. Of course, if you have 10 users and a budget of a few thousand a year, I'm guessing that would not be a good option for you. We have over 300 users and are running on AIX. Otherwise, I think those other options given by previous posters are your best bet: 1) Find a way to make the UPS gracefully shutdown your Universe server (along with Universe) I know APC has quite a bit of Windows based software along these lines for fairly cheap. 2) Virtualize the server and use some of those features. Don't expect Hyper-V to do it for you without a lot of third party help. On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 12:27 PM, Wols Lists antli...@youngman.org.ukwrote: On 19/07/11 16:30, Arnold Bosch wrote: Hi Has anybody ever tested how Universe behaves if the server is hibernated to disk ? Does it work and resume locally logged on sessions properly when the server is brought back up again? Obviously all network sessions will be aborted, but I'm not concerned about that. What's doing the hibernate? Do you mean like a laptop suspend? My first thought was you meant suspending a VM, but it doesn't read quite like that to me. Having been following this with the linux kernel (yes, that's not Windows, I know), if you mean suspending a VM of some sort, yes the system should just resume with minimal problems and carry on as if nothing has happened. I run XP in a VM on linux, and rarely have problems even though things like My Documents etc are on a (from XP's point of view) network disk. If, however, you really mean hibernate, with Windows flushing *itself* to disk, that's hard to get right. You also said without a proper shutdown, implying that it didn't hibernate, but crashed. Basically, unless it's totally controlled like saving a VM, I'd be very wary of something that may have saved itself after a power failure. Sounds like it might be worth investing in a checkpointing file store - checkpoint before overnight processing, then catch-up afterwards. If you've got a mirror you can break, you could break the mirror and back up one copy while the other copy is updating, before you resume the mirror. Cheers, Wol ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users -- John Thompson -- John Thompson ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
I have hibernated UV on linux and also suspended a VM running UV/linux and even hibernated the VM server running the client running UV with no issues - but this is a single user dev system. I would be very cautious of putting a production system to something not explicitly supported by Rocket - but by necessity it may be worth looking into. It may solve your situation nicely and if you do a properly managed clean reboot the next morning you'd probably be in pretty good shape. You could do a simple smoke test - download a copy of the PE edition of UV to a PC, run up a few sessions (up to 2 or 10 with device licencing on PE?) running a program doing logged read/writes (I'd try a few different types of R/W readu, readv, sequential, transaction bounded etc) and hibernate and wake it and see if you get any issues. Let us know how you go. Cheers, Stuart -Original Message- From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org [mailto:u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Arnold Bosch Sent: Wednesday, 20 July 2011 01:31 To: U2 Users List Subject: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation Hi Has anybody ever tested how Universe behaves if the server is hibernated to disk ? Does it work and resume locally logged on sessions properly when the server is brought back up again? Obviously all network sessions will be aborted, but I'm not concerned about that. For background: We're running Universe 10.2.10 on Windows 2003 Enterprise X64 Server. Every night we have backups, a lot of batch update jobs and reporting that runs on the UV server. During this time period, there are no users connected to the system; only administrators can connect. Last week one night we had a power failure that outlasted the 4 hours run-time we have on our UPS, resulting in the server going down without a proper shutdown; fortunately not while in the middle of doing updates. I am concerned that something similar might happen while the system is processing; during the day it is OK as there are IT staff on-site that can make sure that user sessions are terminated as normally as possible and the server brought down gracefully during long-running outages. Why I'm asking about the hibernation: If there are local UV processes running, and the server is suspended to disk, will such processes carry on from where they left off when the server is brought up again ? - this could save us a lot of recovery time in such cases - rare as they are. Currently we have to look at at what point of the nightly jobs the server went down; if it was during backups no processing would be done; if it was during processing, we have to restore the backup to get the server back to a known state and so on. Kind regards Arnold Bosch IT Administrator Taeuber Corssen SWA (Pty) Ltd -- - Disclaimer: This email message is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information which may be privileged and protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify us at our email address, delete this message and do not disclose the contents of this email message to any other person use it for any purpose or store or copy this email in any manner or form. Opinions, conclusions and other information contained in this email message that do not relate to our official business shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by us. We do not represent, warrant and/or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained or that this communication is free of errors, virus, interception or interference. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation
Obvious any connections (telnet, UO etc.) would be broken in the hibernation. Likewise, if you have process being fired off at specific times, and you miss these cause system is off, you will have issues. BUT/IF the only processes running are phantoms, AND they are not accessing data across a network (*warning* may include a SAN HBA!!) you should be fine Ross Ferris Stamina Software Visage Better by Design! -Original Message- From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org [mailto:u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Boydell, Stuart Sent: Wednesday, 20 July 2011 11:31 AM To: U2 Users List Subject: Re: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation I have hibernated UV on linux and also suspended a VM running UV/linux and even hibernated the VM server running the client running UV with no issues - but this is a single user dev system. I would be very cautious of putting a production system to something not explicitly supported by Rocket - but by necessity it may be worth looking into. It may solve your situation nicely and if you do a properly managed clean reboot the next morning you'd probably be in pretty good shape. You could do a simple smoke test - download a copy of the PE edition of UV to a PC, run up a few sessions (up to 2 or 10 with device licencing on PE?) running a program doing logged read/writes (I'd try a few different types of R/W readu, readv, sequential, transaction bounded etc) and hibernate and wake it and see if you get any issues. Let us know how you go. Cheers, Stuart -Original Message- From: u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org [mailto:u2-users-boun...@listserver.u2ug.org] On Behalf Of Arnold Bosch Sent: Wednesday, 20 July 2011 01:31 To: U2 Users List Subject: [U2] Universe Server Hibernation Hi Has anybody ever tested how Universe behaves if the server is hibernated to disk ? Does it work and resume locally logged on sessions properly when the server is brought back up again? Obviously all network sessions will be aborted, but I'm not concerned about that. For background: We're running Universe 10.2.10 on Windows 2003 Enterprise X64 Server. Every night we have backups, a lot of batch update jobs and reporting that runs on the UV server. During this time period, there are no users connected to the system; only administrators can connect. Last week one night we had a power failure that outlasted the 4 hours run-time we have on our UPS, resulting in the server going down without a proper shutdown; fortunately not while in the middle of doing updates. I am concerned that something similar might happen while the system is processing; during the day it is OK as there are IT staff on-site that can make sure that user sessions are terminated as normally as possible and the server brought down gracefully during long-running outages. Why I'm asking about the hibernation: If there are local UV processes running, and the server is suspended to disk, will such processes carry on from where they left off when the server is brought up again ? - this could save us a lot of recovery time in such cases - rare as they are. Currently we have to look at at what point of the nightly jobs the server went down; if it was during backups no processing would be done; if it was during processing, we have to restore the backup to get the server back to a known state and so on. Kind regards Arnold Bosch IT Administrator Taeuber Corssen SWA (Pty) Ltd -- - Disclaimer: This email message is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain confidential information which may be privileged and protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify us at our email address, delete this message and do not disclose the contents of this email message to any other person use it for any purpose or store or copy this email in any manner or form. Opinions, conclusions and other information contained in this email message that do not relate to our official business shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by us. We do not represent, warrant and/or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained or that this communication is free of errors, virus, interception or interference. ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users ___ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
