Implementing automatic switchover

A non-transitory machine readable medium comprising machine executable code which when executed by a machine, causes the machine to:

• determine that a storage section is designated for heartbeat information exchange from a first node to a second node;
• perform a read operation to access the storage section for obtaining a current heartbeat status of the first node;
• determine a write caching synchronization state between the first node and the second node based upon the current heartbeat status indicating a failure of the first node;
• refrain from initiating an automatic switchover operation based upon the write caching synchronization state indicating that the second node has not accounted for client I/O operations temporarily stored by the first node within a write cache before being written to a storage device by the first node;
• and
• in response to the write caching synchronization state indicating that the second node has accounted for the client I/O operations and is in a synchronous state, initiating the automatic switchover.

A computing device comprising:

• a memory comprising machine executable code;
• and
• a service processor coupled to the memory, the service processor configured to execute the machine executable code to cause the service processor to:
• store an internet protocol (IP) address of a second storage controller that is within a second storage cluster, the second storage controller configured as a disaster recovery partner for a first storage controller that is within a first storage cluster;
• monitor health of the first storage controller;
• detect a failure of the first storage controller;
• generate a service processor trap based upon the IP address, a port number of the second controller, and a shared secret within authentication information for the second storage controller;
• and
• send the service processor trap to the IP address, the service processor trap triggering the second storage controller to initiate an automatic switchover operation from the first storage controller to the second storage controller for providing clients with failover access to data previously accessible to the clients through the first storage controller before switchover.