When the Fabric Manager is clustered, additional access points are available. These access points consist of “floating” IP addresses and a static IP address for each Fabric Management Platform.
The “floating” IP addresses are associated with the active Fabric Manager components. For example, if an administrator attaches to the Fabric Management Platform through the floating IP address attached to the customer corporate LAN (public LAN), the connection is to the Fabric Management Platform with the active workload.
For direct access to a particular Fabric Management Platform, the administrator uses the static IP address for that Fabric Management Platform.
The access points for your clustered Fabric Management Platforms are
A static ClearPath Forward Management LAN (FM LAN) address for each Fabric Management Platform enables the administrator to manage the system directly.
For example, administrators with the correct credentials can complete certain tasks regarding cluster creation and the cluster service [OpenAIS] using the Unisys Cluster application and the static IP address. (Not that remote desktop is required for this use.)
The floating IP address on the ClearPath Forward Management LAN (FM LAN) is used for s-Par® authentication, ensuring that the syscon terminals are authenticated on the active Fabric Management Platform.
Note: This floating IP address can also be used for accessing the Fabric Manager, if a floating IP address on the customer corporate LAN (public LAN) is not available.
If configured, a floating IP address on the customer corporate LAN (public LAN) is available for an administrator to use to access the Fabric Manager—ensuring that the administrator is connected to the active Fabric Management Platform. The administrator can manage the day-to-day Fabric Manager cluster operations using the floating IP address as long as the cluster service is running.