Setting up Directory database failover through backup and restore

To protect the Directory database by regularly backing up the master database instance, you can set up Directory database failover using the backup and restore method.

Before you begin

Your Security Center license must support multiple Directory servers. If you need to update your license, see the Security Center Installation and Upgrade Guide.
NOTE: The Directory Manager () role is created automatically in Config Tool when your license supports multiple Directory servers.
All database servers must be accessible from all Directory servers. You must configure the remote database server (SQL Server) to accept connection requests from the roles.
All database instances must be the same version, and an expansion server must be installed on each database server. For more information about installing expansion servers, see the Security Center Installation and Upgrade Guide.

What you should know

Once Backup and restore failover mode is enabled, you no longer back up the Directory database from Server Admin, but from Config Tool.

Changes made to the system configuration while you were operating from the backup database are not automatically restored to the master database when it is restored to active service.

To use backup and restore as your Directory database failover solution:

From the Config Tool home page, open the System task, and click the Roles view.
Select the Directory Manager () role, and click the Database failover tab.
Switch the Use database failover option to ON.
Select Backup and restore for Failover mode.
Click Add an item ().
In the dialog box that appears, specify the Security Center server, the database server, the database instance, and the folder where the backup files should be copied.
You can assign as many backup databases as you want. However, the more backup databases you have, the longer it takes to back up the Directory database content.
Click OK.

The new backup database instance is added.
NOTE: The server flagged as (Master) is the one currently hosting the database. The green LED () indicates the database that is currently active (not necessarily the master).
To force all Directory servers to reconnect to the master database once it is back online after a failover, select the Automatically reconnect to master database option.

CAUTION: Switching the active database causes a short service disruption, and all changes made to the system configuration while the master database was offline are lost. Use this option only if you are ready to lose the changes made to the system configuration while you were operating from the backup database.
Under Master backup, specify the frequency at which the full backup and the differential backup should be generated.

A differential backup only contains the database transactions made since the previous backup, so it is much faster to generate than a full backup. Frequent differential backups ensure that your backup database is most up to date when you fail over, but might take longer to restore.
Click Apply.

After you finish

CAUTION: Once the Backup and restore failover mode is enabled, all subsequent changes to the master database from Server Admin (restoring a previous backup for example) must immediately be followed by a full manual backup executed from Config Tool. Failing to do so causes your master and backup databases to become out of sync and the database failover mechanism to no longer work.