Bladelogic Best Practice

Bladelogic Best Practice

BladeLogic Standard Operating Procedure

Moving or Replicating a BladeLogic Environment

Table of Contents

1.Document Information

1.1.Purpose

1.2.Version

1.3.Revision History

2.Introduction

2.1.Overview

2.2.Before You Begin

3.Standard Operating Procedure for Moving or Replicating a BladeLogic Environment

3.1.Introduction

3.2.Steps

3.2.1.Backup & Installation Preparation

3.2.1.1.Application Server

3.2.1.2.File Server

3.2.1.3.Database

3.2.1.4.Reports

3.2.1.5.Provisioning

3.2.2.Installation / Infrastructure Move

3.2.2.1.Database

3.2.2.2.Reports

3.2.2.3.File Server

3.2.2.4.Application Server

3.2.2.5.Provisioning

1.Document Information

1.1.Purpose

This document shall outline the standard operating procedurefor moving or replicating a BladeLogic environment. This includes the BladeLogic application server, file server, provisioning server, and reports server.

1.2.Version

This applies to all versions 7.x and above.

1.3.Revision History

Version / Date / Contributor / Description of Change
1.0 / 13-Mar-2007 / Greg Kullberg / Initial creation

2.Introduction

2.1.Overview

This document covers the Standard Operating Procedure for moving or replicating a BladeLogic environment. There are several reasons as to why you would want to move or replicate a BladeLogic environment:

  • To create a test environment to prepare for a BladeLogic upgrade
  • To move BladeLogic infrastructure without moving the physical hardware
  • To create a replicated environment for training

2.2.Before You Begin

Before moving or replicating your BladeLogic environment, there are a few things to be aware of:

  • You will need to temporarily stop your BladeLogic Application server to create a backup of your database and file server. This will ensure both backups are synchronized to the same date and time.
  • You will need to notify any BladeLogic users that system will be down during this process. The amount of time the application server will be down depends on how quickly you are able to copy your File Server and Database, which will vary greatly depending on how much data in contained in each of these infrastructure pieces.
  • Decide what you are going to move or replicate. In some cases, one might want to move only the File Server. In other cases you may want to replicate your entire infrastructure. Using the steps listed in this document, you should be able to achieve your move / replication by only going to the sections applicable to what you want to move or replicate.

3.Standard Operating Procedure forMoving or Replicating a BladeLogic Environment

3.1.Introduction

If you are moving or replicating your environment, decide first what you want to move / replicate. Your BladeLogic infrastructure can consist of many pieces, and you may need to move one, several, or all of those pieces. The following steps assume you are moving or replicating your entire environment, so if a particular piece does not apply to what you are moving or replicating, skip over that step.

3.2.Steps

3.2.1.Backup & Installation Preparation

3.2.1.1.Application Server

  1. Notify BladeLogic users that the environment will be unavailable for the period of time you estimate to perform the steps in this section.
  2. Stop your application server, process spawner & the RSCD agent on the file server.
  3. Make a backup the <bl_install_dir>/br/tpasswd.conf. This will be used on the replicated BladeLogic application server.
  4. Backup the <bl_install_dir>/br/config.xml file. This file is used to set your application server settings.
  5. Backup any custom grammar files in the <bl_install_dir>/scripts directory.
  6. Backup any custom scripts in the <bl_install_dir>/share/sensors directory.
  7. Backup any AD integration files (if configured)

3.2.1.2.File Server

  1. Backup your BladeLogic file server (ex: /usr/nsh/storage or <bl_install_dir>/OM/storage)

3.2.1.3.Database

  1. Export your core BladeLogic database

3.2.1.4.Reports

  1. Notify BladeLogic users that BladeLogic reports will be unavailable for the period of time you estimate to perform the steps in this section.
  2. Stop Apache Tomcat on your reports server
  3. Export your BladeLogic reports database
  4. Backup any custom report definitions in the <bl_reports_install_dir>/Tomcat directory
  5. Backup the <bl_reports_install_dir>/config/PatchPropertiesDataDescription.xml file

3.2.1.5.Provisioning

  1. Backup the provisioning data store.
  2. Copy any custom boot (blade.img) files specific to your environment.

3.2.2.Installation / Infrastructure Move

It is important that you perform the following steps in the correct order. For example, make sure your BladeLogic database is ready before installing the new application server.

3.2.2.1.Database

  1. Import the core database into the new database server
  2. Configure the database user (ex: ‘bladelogic’) used to connect to the core database

3.2.2.2.Reports

  1. Import the reports database into the new database server
  2. Configure the database user used to connect to the reports database
  1. Install BladeLogic Reports on a new server
  2. Copy any custom report definitions to their same locations on the reports server
  3. Copy your backup <bl_reports_install_dir>/config/PatchPropertiesDataDescription.xml file to the same location on the reports server

3.2.2.3.File Server

  1. Copy the file server to its new location
  2. If the name of your new file server has changed, or if the path at which the file server is located has changed (ex: //blfs/usr/nsh/storage -> //newblfs/storage), run the “file server change” database scripts included in the “external-files.tar” for your release against your core database.
  3. For example, if you have an Oracle database, extract the external-files.tar and locate the files in “/db_scripts/oracle/utility/file_server_change”.
  4. See the related instructions in the Installation Manual under the section “Using Databases with BladeLogic” titled “Using the Database to Change File Servers”.

3.2.2.4.Application Server

  1. Install the application server & file server agent on a new server.
  2. Replace the <bl_install_dir>/br/tpasswd.conf file with tpasswd.conf from the previous installation.
  3. Replace the <bl_install_dir>/br/config.xml file with the config.xml file from the previous installation.
  4. Copy any custom grammar files into the <bl_install_dir>/scripts directory
  5. Copy any custom scripts / sensors to the <bl_install_dir>/share/sensors directory
  6. Reconfigure AD integration (if applicable).
  7. (Re)start your application server.

3.2.2.5.Provisioning

  1. If replicating your provisioning environment, install the BladeLogic PXE & TFTP server.
  2. Copy your provisioning data store to the new server.
  3. Replicate any custom application server settings by running <bl_install_dir>/br/blasadmin.

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