Operating in a disaster recovery environment

There are a number of situations in which you might want to switch over to the other appliance in a disaster recovery configuration.

Disaster recovery

Following the complete loss of the primary queue manager at the main site, you start the secondary queue manager at the recovery site. Applications reconnect to the queue manager at the recovery site and the secondary queue manager processes application messages. The steps taken to revert to the previous configuration depend on the cause of the failure. For example, complete loss of main appliance versus temporary loss.

For steps to take following a temporary loss of the main site, see Switching over to a recovery appliance and Switching back to the main appliance by using the command line. For steps to take following permanent failure, see Replacing a failed node in a disaster recovery configuration.

Disaster recovery test support

You can test the disaster recovery configuration by isolating the recovery site and starting the secondary queue manager so that you can test it and ensure that applications can connect to it. Normal processing continues at the main site. After the test you can discard test data and restore the live replication link between main and recovery appliances.

For steps to follow to test the secondary queue manager in isolation, see Testing the recovery appliance.

Reversal of disaster recovery roles

You might require to periodically reverse the roles of the appliances in your disaster recovery configuration. In this scenario, the main appliance becomes the recovery appliance. The primary queue manager is stopped and designated as the secondary queue manager, while the other queue manager on the recovery appliance is started and becomes the primary queue manager. Applications must reconnect to the new primary queue manager.

For steps to follow to reverse disaster recovery roles, see Reversing disaster recovery roles.