Creating Citrix NetScaler failover service groups

Citrix netscaler

You can separate resources within a NetScaler such as a geographically dispersed StoreFront installation and allow the NetScaler to present local service groups to your users normally however if for whatever reason those resources fail then the NetScaler can automatically fail over to the remote resources.

This could be used if you run a single Citrix StoreFront server group across two datacentres ( say a primary and a DR) to ensure a consistent experience but you want to ensure that users accessing the NetScaler utilise their local StoreFront resources unless they are not available.

In order to do this we are going to create an additional service group, and virtual server and make use of the backup protection feature.

Firstly add your backend server resources into your NetScaler by navigating to Traffic Management\Load Balancing\Servers.
Citrix NetScaler Backup VIP

 

Enter the backend resource details and hit Create. repeat for as many resources as you need.

Citrix NetScaler Backup VIP

Now move onto your Service Groups and create a new group by going to Traffic Management\Load Balancing\Service Groups and hit Add.

NetScaler Backup VIP 3

Enter a name for your Service Group and the protocol to be used, In my demo lab I’m using HTTP backend connection to StoreFront

NetScaler Backup VIP

Select the remote servers and port that you would like to add to the Service Group and hit Create

NetScaler Backup VIP

Finally choose a Monitor to to use such as a standard HTTP monitor or a custom StoreFront monitor and hit Done.

NetScaler backup VIP

From my example I have the current live service group svcg_storefront_http_80 and also the remote service group I want to fail over to if all members of the primary service group are down.

NetScaler backup VIP

Now we move onto the virtual server configuration, begin by navigating to Traffic Management/Load Balancing\Virtual Server and hit Add.

NetScaler backup VIP

Give your VIP a name, choose the protocol and then in the IP address type choose None Addressable, then hit OK.

After hitting ok complete the VIP creation by selecting the standard options applicable to your VIP. In my StoreFront demo VIP all I need to add is the remote site service group and a server certificate and then click Done.

NetScaler backup VIP

You should now have your remote VIP up and running and in my demo lab you can see the Storefront_Remote_Datacentre Vip (1) and my currently live very_storefront_https_443 VIP which is mapped to the primary datacentre StoreFront Servers.

NetScaler backup VIP

To complete the configuration open your primary datacentre StoreFront VIP and add the protection feature into the VIP by clicking Protection on the right hand side.

NetScaler backup VIP

From the Protection features from the dropbox in the Backup Virtual Server option select the remote server VIP.  Finally hit OK and Done.

NetScaler backup VIP

Thats it your all done.

Author: Dale Scriven

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