Part 1 – Aruba Airwave Failover Logic

Part 2

About the Failover Server

The failover server communicates with the watched AirWave servers using SSH, SNMP, and AMON over port 443.

When you use AirWave for failover monitoring, the failover server:

Polls the watched AirWave servers.
Copies the nightly backup from each server to itself.
Restores the watched server from the most recent nightly backup during a failover event. The watched server reboots and begins polling devices. There will be a gap in time between the last nightly backup of the watched AirWave server, and the time of the restoration event.
Fails back to its failover role (after a manual back up).

Note: During this process, the failover server keeps its IP address.

Reference: https://www.arubanetworks.com/techdocs/AirWave/82130/Content/Failover%20Guide/failover_basics.htm

Basic High-Level Configuration on the mobility conductor and managed devices

Mobility Conductor Configuration

snmp-server community Aruba123
snmp-server user airwavesnmpv3 auth-prot sha ****** priv-prot AES ******
snmp-server host 10.0.0.60 version 2c Aruba123udp-port 162
snmp-server host 10.0.0.61 version 2c Aruba123udp-port 162
snmp-server host 10.0.0.60 version 3 airwavesnmpv3 inform udp-port 162
snmp-server host 10.0.0.61 version 3 airwavesnmpv3 inform udp-port 162
snmp-server host 10.0.0.5 version 3 airwavesnmpv3 inform udp-port 162
!

Managed Device Configuration

snmp-server community Aruba123
snmp-server user airwavesnmpv3 auth-prot sha ****** priv-prot AES ******
snmp-server host 10.0.0.60 version 2c Aruba123udp-port 162
snmp-server host 10.0.0.61 version 2c Aruba123udp-port 162
snmp-server host 10.0.0.60 version 3 airwavesnmpv3 inform udp-port 162
snmp-server host 10.0.0.61 version 3 airwavesnmpv3 inform udp-port 162
snmp-server host 10.0.0.5 version 3 airwavesnmpv3 inform udp-port 162
!
******************************************************************************
mgmt-server profile "AIRWAVE-AMON-PROFILE"
   stats-enable
   tag-enable
   sessions-enable
   user-visibility-enable
   misc-enable
   location-enable
   ap-stats
   ap-app-stats
!
******************************************************************************

mgmt-server primary-server 10.0.0.61 profile AIRWAVE-AMON-PROFILE
mgmt-server primary-server conductor profile MGMG-CONFIG-PROFILE transport udp
mgmt-server primary-server 10.0.0.60 profile AIRWAVE-AMON-PROFILE
!

Mobility Conductor and Managed Device Verification

Conductor

Managed Device

Verify communications between Airwave and the Managed Devices

Configure Airwave HA/Failover

Purchase the failover license with the desired capacity to support a failover event.
Copy the new license

-- Begin AirWave License Key ---
Organization: ABC
Product: AMP Failover
Package: AW-FR-EVAL
RAPIDS: Yes
VisualRF: Yes
Expires: 1728416541
Expires_on: Tue Oct 8 19:42:21 2024
Serial: ABC
Generated: Wed Jul 10 19:42:21 2024 UTC
--- End AirWave License Key ---

3. HTTPS into the failover Airwave server

4. Accept the agreement > Click save

5. Click “Home” ….

Note: IP address = Primary Airwave IP

6. Click save

7. Verify the status of the primary Airwave server

At this time the two Airwave servers should be in “steady-state”.

The failover server communicates with the watched AirWave servers using SSH, SNMP, and AMON over port 443.

Verification:

The backup files can be viewed on the CLI. The files can be copied to a remote data repository using SCP.

SSH into the secondary AMP server and navigate through the numbered menu.

Note: The primary Airwave server is the “source of truth” for the backup files. The secondary Airwave server copies the backups from the primary.

Testing the Failover

Perform a test to validate that your watched AirWave server can fail over to the failover server. To test the failover of a server, shut down the server for the minimum poll duration.

AirWave retries polling the AirWave server a number of times before it considers the AirWave server unavailable. Several configuration options affect how long it takes to complete the SNMP polling, including the HTTP timeout, SNMP polling interval, and missed poll threshold.