Upgrading a Stand-Alone TCOSS to a Tandem System

Issue

Upgrading a Stand-Alone TCOSS to a Tandem System

Solution

Before installing a Secondary Master, you should back up the current config and file structure of the Stand-Alone system, just in case anything goes wrong.

The most important thing for the file structure is that the Secondary Master does not take over alone while being in Tandem Mode before the file structure was synchronized completely!

1. Install a second TCOSS as Secondary Master
   1. Create a file structure on the Secondary Master with the same specifications as the first one
      To view the specifications on the current file structure, start the C:\TCOSS\SYSTEM\TCDISK.exe tool.
      Type "0" for the first TCOSS instance (this guide does not assume that you are working on an ASP TCOSS system, so there should only be one instance) and press Enter
      Press "1" for Disk Info / Change settings and press Enter
      - after this, the TCOSS instance has to be stopped, so TCDISK tool can access the file structure, otherwise you will get an error -
      Press (usually) "1" to select the TCOSS file structure (the configured file name is shown) You will get a screen like this:
      
      While creating the new file structure (with the same size in MB) on the Secondary Master, you can configure the fields with the red squares, make sure they are identical!
2. Install the Status Agent on a separate machine (installing the Status Agent on the Primary or Secondary Master is NOT supported!)
3. Add the Secondary Master as well as the Status Agent to the Kofax Communication Server Monitor (TCMON32.exe)
   1. Either add them to an existing command line in a shortcut, or simply add them with File > Add Server in TCMON32.
4. Change the Stand-Alone TCOSS to a Primary Master Tandem server.
   1. Stop the Stand-Alone TCOSS and start WConfig
   2. Go to 00) Configure > 01) Operating system, system parameters > 02) Model 155/21x and change it to Model 165/22x/32x
   3. Install the new config, but don't yet start tcsrv!
5. Add missing registry keys on the Primary Master.
   1. Change the existing string value TOPCALL\TCOSS\Model = "Mxxx" to "M165-1"
   2. Add the key TOPCALL\TCOSS\DataLinkType = "TCP" and TCPLinkPath = "ip_address_of_secondary_master" as REG_SZ strings
   3. Add a subkey TOPCALL\TCOSS\StatusAgent\Connection1
   4. Add the DWORD32 and REG_SZ keys as they exist on the Secondary Master (as an example):
      • CheckCycle REG_DWORD 0x00000030
      • OwnIpAddress REG_SZ ip_address_of_primary_master_lan_adapter
      • Path REG_SZ ip_address_of_status_agent:64257/ip_address_of_primary_master_lan_adapter
      • TargetIpAddress REG_SZ ip_address_of_status_agent
      • Type REG_DWORD 0x00000003
   5. Add the key TOPCALL\Boot\TCRPCServerMode1 and set it to 1 (default is 3), if it is set to 1 on the Secondary Master!
      Otherwise the Primary and Secondary Master will not see each other over the primary data connection. Handshaking would fail!
6. Start the Status Agent and Primary Master tcsrv via TCMON32, if it boots successfully and the Status Agent can see 1/2 connections successfully, you can also boot the Secondary Master.
   1. If TOPCALL\TCOSS\RunWithoutStatusAgent is set to "0", the (Primary) Master will not boot until a connection to the running Status Agent is established!
7. If the configuration was entered correctly (Primary Master, Secondary Master, Status Agent) and connections are not blocked by e.g. a Firewall, TCOSS should boot up in Tandem Mode and the file structure disk on the Secondary Master will be updated until both file structures are synchronized!
8. Once the file structures are synchronized you have a fully functional fault tolerant Tandem system!

Level of Complexity 

Moderate

Applies to  

References

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