SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP4

Release Notes #

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension is a suite of clustering technologies that enable enterprises to implement highly available Linux clusters and eliminate single points of failure. This document gives an overview of features of SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension and their limitations. Some sections do not apply to a particular architecture or product, this is explicitly marked.

Manuals can be found in the docu directory of the installation media, or in the directory /usr/share/doc/ on the installed system (if installed).

Publication Date: 2018-12-27, Version: 12.4.20181207

1 SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension

2 What Is New?

3 Support Statement for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP4

3.1 Support Information for Specific Packages

4 Technology Previews

4.1 SCSI Locking on Multipath With mpathpersist Resource Agent

5 Resources and Resource Agents

5.1 The aws-vpc-ip-move Resource Agent is now available upstream and is provided by the resource-agents package

6 How to Obtain Source Code

7 More Information and Feedback

1 SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension #

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension is an affordable, integrated suite of robust open source clustering technologies that enable enterprises to implement highly available Linux clusters and eliminate single points of failure.

Used with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, it helps firms maintain business continuity, protect data integrity, and reduce unplanned downtime for their mission-critical Linux workloads.

SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension provides all of the essential monitoring, messaging, and cluster resource management functionality of proprietary third-party solutions, but at a more affordable price, making it accessible to a wider range of enterprises.

It is optimized to work with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and its tight integration ensures customers have the most robust, secure, and up to date high availability solution. Based on an innovative, highly flexible policy engine, it supports a wide range of clustering scenarios.

With static or stateless content, the High Availability cluster can be used without a cluster file system. This includes web-services with static content as well as printing systems or communication systems like proxies that do not need to recover data.

Finally, its open source license minimizes the risk of vendor lock-in, and its adherence to open standards encourages interoperability with industry standard tools and technologies.

2 What Is New? #

Cluster File System: GFS2 cluster file system with read/write support, to complement the SUSE recommended OCFS2 cluster file system.
Load balancer: HAProxy as layer 4 load balancer added, to complement the Linux virtual server load balancer.
History Explorer: Hawk history explorer now includes off-line analysis capabilities.
Resource Agents: Resource agents got multiple updates, including a resource agent to handle SCSI reservations

Make sure to also review the release notes for the base product, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP4 which are published at https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/SUSE-SLES/12-SP4/.

To find out what is new in the Geo clustering option for the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP4, see https://www.suse.com/releasenotes/x86_64/SLE-HA/12-SP4-GEO/.

3 Support Statement for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP4 #

Support requires an appropriate subscription from SUSE. For more information, see http://www.suse.com/products/server/.

A Geo Clustering for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension subscription is needed to receive support and maintenance to run geographical clustering scenarios, including manual and automated setups.

Support for the DRBD storage replication is independent of the cluster scenario and included as part of the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension product and does not require the addition of a Geo Clustering for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension subscription.

General Support Statement

The following definitions apply:

L1: Installation and problem determination - technical support designed to provide compatibility information, installation and configuration assistance, usage support, on-going maintenance and basic troubleshooting. Level 1 Support is not intended to correct product defect errors.
L2: Reproduction of problem isolation - technical support designed to duplicate customer problems, isolate problem areas and potential issues, and provide resolution for problems not resolved by Level 1 Support.
L3: Code Debugging and problem resolution - technical support designed to resolve complex problems by engaging engineering in patch provision, resolution of product defects which have been identified by Level 2 Support.

SUSE will only support the usage of original (unchanged or not recompiled) packages.

3.1 Support Information for Specific Packages #

3.1.1 softdog Is Now Supported as a Watchdog Service #

In the past, softdog was not supported as a watchdog service because it is a software-based watchdog, however, it has proved to be reliable and usable in mission-critical HA deployments.

In SLE HA 12 SP4, softdog is supported by SUSE for HA deployments. However, it is important to notice that some limitations still apply. For more information, see the documentation at https://www.suse.com/documentation/sle-ha-12/singlehtml/install-quick/install-quick.html#sec.ha.inst.quick.sbd.setup.

4 Technology Previews #

Technology previews are packages, stacks, or features delivered by SUSE which are not supported. They may be functionally incomplete, unstable or in other ways not suitable for production use. They are included for your convenience and give you a chance to test new technologies within an enterprise environment.

Whether a technology preview becomes a fully supported technology later depends on customer and market feedback. Technology previews can be dropped at any time and SUSE does not commit to providing a supported version of such technologies in the future.

Give your SUSE representative feedback, including your experience and use case.

4.1 SCSI Locking on Multipath With mpathpersist Resource Agent #

In previous versions, the sg_persist resource agent only deals with the SCSI device directly and could not handle multipath devices.

As a technology preview, the mpathpersist resource agent now has a new functionality that allows for HA clusters that have a SCSI locking mechanism on top of multipath.

5 Resources and Resource Agents #

5.1 The aws-vpc-ip-move Resource Agent is now available upstream and is provided by the resource-agents package #

The aws-vpc-ip-move resource agent was originally created by SUSE and has been maintained internally while we worked to integrate it into the ClusterLabs project. As ClusterLabs has accepted the contribution, SUSE will maintain and ship the upstream version.

The contents of the package aws-vpc-ip-move were merged into the resource-agents packages, and a symbolic link was provided for the old SUSE-specific resource agent location to guarantee backward compatibility. During upgrade, the aws-vpc-ip-move package will be uninstalled and the resource-agents package will be installed to provide the latest version of the same resource agent.

In the new version of the aws-vpc-ip-move resource agent, the parameter address has been renamed to ip. For compatibility, the parameter address is still available but deprecated. Therefore, we recommend adjusting your configuration to use the new parameter name ip.

6 How to Obtain Source Code #

This SUSE product includes materials licensed to SUSE under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL requires SUSE to provide the source code that corresponds to the GPL-licensed material. The source code is available for download at http://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html. Also, for up to three years after distribution of the SUSE product, upon request, SUSE will mail a copy of the source code. Requests should be sent by e-mail to mailto:sle_source_request@suse.com or as otherwise instructed at http://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html. SUSE may charge a reasonable fee to recover distribution costs.

7 More Information and Feedback #

Read the READMEs on the CDs.
Get detailed changelog information about a particular package from the RPM (where FILENAME is the name of the RPM):
```
rpm --changelog -qp FILENAME.rpm
```
Check the ChangeLog file in the top level of CD1 for a chronological log of all changes made to the updated packages.
Find more information in the docu directory of first medium of the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension media. This directory includes a PDF version of the High Availability Guide.
http://www.suse.com/documentation/ contains additional or updated documentation for SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 12 SP4.
Visit http://www.suse.com/products/ for the latest product news from SUSE and http://www.suse.com/download-linux/source-code.html for additional information on the source code of SUSE Linux Enterprise products.