Question

What is one way of getting a fail-over scenario set up for Notification Server?

Bearing in mind that Notification Server is generally not designed to be set up to run in any form of automatic or manual fail-over mode, how can I set up Notification Server to be as close to fail-over as possible in case of hardware failure?

Answer

Here is a possible solution:

Ensure that you have two Notification Servers on the back end with exactly the same hardware and software installed, sharing a single IP address (this would need to be via a suitable IP network failover service or device), with a single Altiris database being hosted on an external SQL server.

That being the case, what seems to work is using AexConfig.exe as follows:

• On the failover server, open a command prompt.
• Change to the C:\Program Files\Altiris\Notification Server\Bin\ directory.
• Run the following command using information based on the appropriate server name, database name,  database user and password information for the specific site:
  AexConfig.exe /db dbserver:ns-server_2 dbname:altiris dbusername:<username> dbpassword:<password> dbtimeout:900

This should cause the fail-over Notification Server to take control of the Altiris database.

Notes:

• The database user account will need to have dbo level access to the Altiris database on the SQL server.
• The information provided is based on Notification Server 6.0.6074.