Switching a domain manager

About this task

Being prepared for network problems makes recovery easier. Set up a backup domain manager for each domain manager in your network to more easily ensure that HCL Workload Automation peak job scheduling loads are met. Choose any fault-tolerant agent in the domain to be a backup domain manager.

A domain manager might need to be changed because you want it to run on a different workstation, or it might be forced on you as the result of network linking problems or the failure of the domain manager workstation itself. This section, and its subsections, describes how to prepare for and use a backup domain manager. However, if the domain manager to be changed is a master domain manager or dynamic domain manager, there are some specific additional steps to perform; see Switching the master to a backup.

Running without a domain manager has the following effects:
  • Agents and subordinate domain managers cannot resolve inter-workstation dependencies, because activity records broadcast by the master domain manager are not being received.
  • The upward flow of events is interrupted. This impacts events that report the status of jobs, job streams and dependencies defined on workstations in the HCL Workload Automation network hierarchy under the failed domain manager.
  • Standard agents that are hosted by the failed domain manager cannot perform any processing, since they depend on the domain manager for all scheduling and job launching.

If the problem is expected to be of short duration, you can wait for the problem to be resolved and HCL Workload Automation will recover on its own, as described in Network link problems. If you are uncertain about the duration, or if you want to restore normal agent operation, you must switch to a backup, as described in the following sections.

Ensure that the FullStatus mode is selected in the backup workstation definition. For more information about workstation properties, see Workstation definition.

Also ensure that the backup domain manager is synchronized with respect to time with the domain manager. The most secure way is to use a Network Time Protocol Server to control the time on both systems, with the same repeat interval.

Network security is enforced using IP address validation. As a consequence, workstation linking (autolink option or link command) might fail if an agent has an old Symphony file that does not contain the new domain manager. If a connection fails, remove the old Symphony file on the agent and retry the connection.

For more information about the autolink option, see Workstation definition.

For more information about the link command, see link.