When you setup XenDesktop deployment on NetApp Cluster ONTAP, it is important to set LIF user defined failover groups. LIF failover refers to the automatic migration of a LIF in response to a link failure on the LIF’s current network port. When such a port failure is detected, the LIF is migrated to a working port.

It is best practice to use 10Gb network ports for data LIFs and  1GB network ports for management LIFs. So when the cluster failover, the 10GB data LIF will not fall into 1 GB management LIF. It is also best practice to create a LIF for each volume. So you need to modify each LIF to a proper failover group.

We have four networks in 2000 seat XenDesktop 7 virtual desktop environment and five failover groups.

Failover group:

• Fg-cifs-3048  – CIFS for user data/profile
• Fg-cifs-3073   – server data share, optional
• Fg-nfs-3074 – Storage network, NFS volumes or iSCSI LUNs
• fg-cluster_mgmt – Cluster management
• fg-node_mgmt – Node management

Here is output of failover groups and ports configured on a 4 nodes cluster.

Failover

Group               Node              Port

——————- —————– ———-

fg-cifs-3048

ccr-cmode-01-01   a0a-3048

ccr-cmode-01-02   a0a-3048

ccr-cmode-01-04   a0a-3048

ccr-cmode-01-03   a0a-3048

fg-cifs-3073

ccr-cmode-01-01   a0a-3073

ccr-cmode-01-02   a0a-3073

ccr-cmode-01-04   a0a-3073

ccr-cmode-01-03   a0a-3073

fg-nfs-3074

ccr-cmode-01-01   a0a-3074

ccr-cmode-01-02   a0a-3074

ccr-cmode-01-04   a0a-3074

ccr-cmode-01-03   a0a-3074

fg-cluster_mgmt

ccr-cmode-01-01   e0a

ccr-cmode-01-02   e0a

ccr-cmode-01-04   e0a

ccr-cmode-01-03   e0a

fg-node-mgmt-01

ccr-cmode-01-01   e0M

ccr-cmode-01-01   e0b

fg-node-mgmt-02

ccr-cmode-01-02   e0M

ccr-cmode-01-02   e0b

fg-node-mgmt-03

ccr-cmode-01-03   e0M

ccr-cmode-01-03   e0b

fg-node-mgmt-04

ccr-cmode-01-04   e0M

ccr-cmode-01-04   e0b

Once you create the failover group, you are ready to create LIF and assign the LIF to the proper failover group.

Make sure the following highlighted values are set probably.

1. Avert True is to revert the LIF back to the primary port when the partner node gives back the control to the primary node.
2. Home port and current port is different when the LIF failover to the other storage node.
3. User failover should enable and failover group name.

ccr-cmode-01::> net int show -vserver hsvdi -lif hswc

(network interface show)

Vserver Name: hsvdi

Logical Interface Name: hswc

Role: data

Data Protocol: nfs

Home Node: ccr-cmode-01-01

Home Port: a0a-3074

Current Node: ccr-cmode-01-01

Current Port: a0a-3074

Operational Status: up

Extended Status: –

Is Home: true

Network Address: 172.20.74.107

Netmask: 255.255.255.0

IPv4 Link Local: –

Bits in the Netmask: 24

Routing Group Name: d172.20.74.0/24

Administrative Status: up

Failover Policy: nextavail

Firewall Policy: data

Auto Revert: true

Use Failover Group: enabled

Fully Qualified DNS Zone Name: none

Failover Group Name: fg-nfs-3074

FCP WWPN: –

Comment:

Proper configuration ensure the production systems continue to be functioning and no performance impact.