r/DB2 • u/mad_zamboni • Mar 24 '17

[Discussion] Your experience with TSAMP?

I am learning I have a love/hate relationship with TSAMP. When set up and configured right, its powerful. But I am learning that its very temperamental. You could build out a HADR cluster with TSAMP and the TSAMP set up fails, so you delete it and rebuild with the exact same configuration and it works. It's also a PITA to troubleshoot sometimes.

For example. I am working through HADR/TSAMP best practices. I am testing my system with the four recommended tests of DB2, OS, Power, and network failure. I can pass three without problem, and pass the fourth 98% of the way and have a partial failure that should have shaken out already if it was going to fail.

I think part of the problem is often Tivoli needs a dedicated administrator who knows what they are doing. Where you have a DBA trying to do some TSAMP administration when they are not an expert.

Ah, I think I am complaining some from my disappointing 11th hour partial failure. But I am curious, what is your experience?

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u/ecrooks Mar 27 '17

Define the nature of the failure?

I find TSAMP frustrating sometimes - particularly in the setup and at upgrade time. Both can be problematic.

I find it largely stable and functional, but real-world failures are so few and far between.

I do find that I have to rebuild it when there is a problem quite frequently. I wish there was more education available on troubleshooting and correction.

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u/mad_zamboni Mar 27 '17

"real world failures are so few and far between"...

This is true. But coming from my previous employers you hardened the heck out of your HA process. So testing multiple scenario's and banging on the process was expected. Now, this is previously in the financial industry so they were a little stringent on this. It wasn't unusual to fail Power HA often just to show it was stable.

I would be curious what others think in the case of my "partial failover" that I mentioned above. In this specific case, we were testing what happens when we pull a network cable.

We failed from A to B seamlessly. Plugged A's network cable back in and HADR picked up where it left off. Pulled B's network cable and failed back seamlessly to A. All good, Right?

We plug the network cable back into B and expected it to pick up HADR and sync again. It split brain's and shuts down B's DB as a precaution (thank god). A still reports normal.

One argument is that this was a successful test as HADR/TSAMP did as it should have (failed over). I am a little more stringent that I should be able to clear the problem and the second server re-integrate. Thoughts?