Automatic Synchronization from Active to Standby

How to automate backup-and-restore from Active to Standby, using the embedded Postgres database.

Please note

This capability is released as 'Beta' and implementations may change. Please work with Tetrate Technical support if you wish to implement this in a production environment

The solution provided here configures a standby Management Plane instance to actively pull database changes from an active instance. If the active instance were to fail for some reason, and cannot easily be recovered, then the standby instance is ready to become the new Management Plane. The failover process is a manual one, and should be performed as a last resort.

Embedded or External Postgres Database?

These instructions are relevant if you use the embedded Postgres database in each Management Plane. Please refer to Tetrate Technical Support if you plan to follow them, as these general instructions may need to be adapted for your local environment.

Alternatively:

• If you use external Postgres databases, dedicated to each Management Plane instance, you may build your own backup-and-restore or synchronization process. You can use the documentation here as guidelines for installing the Management Planes, and refer to your Postgres documentation to understand how best to replicate from active to standby.

• If you use an external Postgres database that is shared between the active and standby Management Plane, you do not need to sync configuration, but you should maintain regular backups.

Workflow

In this process, you will:

1. Create DNS entries for each Management Plane instance, and a floating DNS name that points to the active Management Plane instance
2. Create a PKI and issue certificates for the Management Plane instances from a common Certificate Authority
3. Install your active Management Plane instance
4. Create a service account on this active instance, which will be used to synchronize its configuration database
5. Install the standby Management Plane instance

Once the Management Plane instances are operational, you can failover from the active instance to the standby instance.

If the failed active instance is still serviceable, you can update it to be a new standby instance.

Other failover methods are possible

Using a floating FQDN is a convenient way to perform failover, and is documented in this example. Other failover methods are possible, such as to deploy the Management Plane instances behind a load balancer, and to perform failover from active to standby by changing the load balancer routes.

Also note that you can avoid the need to run active and standby instances of the Tetrate Management Plane by instead using an external Postgres database with appropriate redundancy/availability, and taking regular backups of both the Postgres configuration and the secrets needed to re-install the management plane.