The most important aspects of the SMS HA cluster are the heartbeat connection and
database replication. Periodically, verify that both activities are performing as
expected.
Two methods are available in the Admin - High Availability screen to deactivate the
active SMS server:
- Swap – Swaps the roles of the SMS HA cluster nodes. This process re-synchronizes and restarts the nodes to ensure that HA status of the cluster is maintained. This process involves a temporary disconnect of the client and is temporarily more disruptive than failover. For more information, see Swap the cluster node roles.
- Failover – Invokes a failover of the active node in the SMS HA cluster, thereby activating
the passive SMS server. To bring the failed-over node back online and reinstate a
fully functioning HA cluster, you must manually synchronize and restart the deactivated
node. For more information, see
Invoke a failover.
If you need to perform maintenance on the active SMS server, for example to swap out a network card, you can invoke a failover on the active node, which deactivates it and activates the passive SMS server. When it is deactivated you can take the node offline, power it off, and perform maintenance.