Change Portal HA Server from Standby to Primary

Jay_Gregory · ‎11-22-2019

I recently configured my ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6.1 environment to be HA, with the addition of a server with Portal and DataStore to an original server also hosting Portal/DataStore (my ArcGIS Server was already HA).

This additional server, when I joined it to my original Portal and configured DataStore, was added to the cluster as the standby server (both Portal and DataStore are standby, and my original Portal/DataStore server are primary). I can see this by going to myportalurl/portaladmin/machines.

My question is how can I switch the roles of my two servers? I want my new server with Portal and Datastore to be promoted to Primary, and I want to demote my original server to Standby. I need to do this for both Portal, and Datastore, and I'm unsure how.

Thanks!

JacobSnyder1 · ‎12-20-2019

Hi Jay,

With respect to both Portal for ArcGIS and ArcGIS Data Store, you could remote onto the machine on which tthe primary Portal for ArcGIS and primary ArcGIS Data Store instances are installed, and stop the associated Windows service. This will cause a failover to occur and promote the standby Portal for ArcGIS machine to be "primary" and the standby ArcGIS Data Store to be "primary". When stopping the Windows services, you should be able to then navigate to Portal Administrator Directory ("Home" > "Machines") and see that the formerly primary portal machine is now the standby. With respect to ArcGIS Data Store, you should be able to log into ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory ("Home" > "data" > "items > "enterpriseDatabases" > <AGSDataStore...> > "machines") and see which machine is now primary and which is now standby. Once you have verified that the failover has occurred, you can remote back into each of the machines that you were remoted into previously and start the Windows services again on each machine that the components were previously designated as "primary" so that these components are now ready to be promoted in the event that a failover is necessary.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Jay_Gregory · ‎12-20-2019

I know that stopping the primary server services will promote the standby’s to primary, but this is a temporary solution (unless I want to keep the original service off). I am curious how to switch the roles permanently. So Portal A (current primary) will be changed to standby and Portal B (current standby) will be changed to primary. Permanently. This is possible to do with data store - to switch the roles - but I haven’t been able to figure out how to do this with Portal.