F5 Big IP for App Failover between Oracle Data Guarded Clusters

Yes, in reading the ODP.net specs, the connection pool would be made to a BigIP virtual server, and you can control the timeout values of those pooled connections using a TCP profile on the virtual server. So for example, you want the connections held open for an hour, you would create a TCP profile with a timeout value of 3600 seconds, and apply that to the TCP client side of the virtual server. Now for the database servers, which are in a pool, there are several options for when a pool member goes down. This setting is called "Action on Service Down", and the default is to do nothing, so you would want to change this to "reject", so the bigip will reset all client side connections immediately. This is done in the UI under Pool Advanced properties in Version10. Then these connections, that were connected to that server, would be given instant notice that the server is unavailable, so they will retry their tcp connection. The Big-IP will automatically select another database server, giving you the quick failover/re-connect you are looking for. You could also try the ReSelect option - depending on your application, this may work. More info:

 

 

Action on Service Down

 

Specifies how the system should respond when the target pool member becomes unavailable. The default is None.

 

 

•None: Specifies that the system does not select a different node. Selecting None causes the system to send traffic to the node even if it is down, until the next health check is done.

 

 

•Reject: Specifies that the system sends an RST or ICMP message.

 

 

•Drop: Specifies that the system simply cleans up the connection.

 

 

•Reselect: Specifies that the system selects a different node. Selecting Reselect causes the system to send traffic to a different node after receiving the message that the original node is down.