Incomplete Resource Priority Modification

A hierarchy in SIOS Protection Suite is defined as all resources associated by parent/child relationships. For resources that have multiple parents, it is not always easy to discern from the GUI all of the root resources for a hierarchy. In order to maintain consistency in a hierarchy, SIOS Protection Suite requires that priority changes be made to all resources in a hierarchy for each server. The GUI enforces this requirement by displaying all root resources for the hierarchy selected after the OK or Apply button is pressed. You have the opportunity at this point to accept all of these roots or cancel the operation. If you accept the list of roots, the new priority values will be applied to all resources in the hierarchy.

You should ensure that no other changes are being made to the hierarchy while the Resource Properties dialog for that hierarchy is displayed. Before you have edited a priority in the Resource Properties dialog, any changes being made to SIOS Protection Suite are dynamically updated in the dialog. Once you have begun making changes, however, the values seen in the dialog are frozen even if underlying changes are being made in SIOS Protection Suite. Only after selecting the Apply or OK button will you be informed that changes were made that will prevent the priority change operation from succeeding as requested.

In order to minimize the likelihood of unrecoverable errors during a priority change operation involving multiple priority changes, the program will execute a multiple priority change operation as a series of individual changes on one server at a time. Additionally, it will assign temporary values to priorities if necessary to prevent temporary priority conflicts during the operation. These temporary values are above the allowed maximum value of 999 and may be temporarily displayed in the GUI during the priority change. Once the operation is completed, these temporary priority values will all be replaced with the requested ones. If an error occurs and priority values cannot be rolled back, it is possible that some of these temporary priority values will remain. If this happens, follow the suggested procedure outlined below to repair the hierarchy.

Restoring Your Hierarchy to a Consistent State

If an error occurs during a priority change operation that prevents the operation from completing, the priorities may be left in an inconsistent state. Errors can occur for a variety of reasons, including system and communications path failure. If an error occurs after the operation has begun, and before it finishes, and the program was not able to roll back to the previous priorities, you will see a message displayed that tells you there was an error during the operation and the previous priorities could not be restored. If this should happen, you should take the following actions to attempt to restore your hierarchy to a consistent state:

1. If possible, determine the source of the problem. Check for system or communications path failure. Verify that other simultaneous operations were not occurring during the same time that the priority administration program was executing.

2. If possible, correct the source of the problem before proceeding. For example, a failed system or communications path must be restored before the hierarchy can be repaired.

3. Re-try the operation from the Resource Properties dialog.

4. If making the change is not possible from the Resource Properties dialog, it may be easier to attempt to repair the hierarchy using the command line hry_setpri. This script allows priorities to be changed on one server at a time and does not work through the GUI.

5. After attempting the repair, verify that the SIOS Protection Suite databases are consistent on all servers by executing the eqv_list command for all servers where the hierarchy exists and observing the priority values returned for all resources in the hierarchy.

6. As a last resort, if the hierarchy cannot be repaired, you may have to delete and re-create the hierarchy.