Making a database unavailable for user access

On occasion, you may want to make a database unavailable for user access. You would do this if you want to do some maintenance on the database or if you want users to fail over to a different replica of the database because the server is reaching a high level of use. To make a database unavailable to users, you mark the database as out of service.

About this task

When you mark a database as out of service, users cannot open the database. Open database requests fail over to a replica, if one is available. If no replica is available, Domino® denies users access to the database and displays an explanatory message.

Users who are using the database when you mark it as out of service continue to have access until they close the database. If users close an out-of-service database and then try to reopen it, they fail over to another replica on an available server, if there is one. This means that the database is gradually brought to an OUT OF SERVICE state without disruption to users who are actively using it. In addition, replication updates from other replicas continue to occur even when a database is marked as out of service.

Procedure

  1. In the Server pane of the Domino® Administrator or the Web Administrator, expand either All Servers or Clusters.
  2. Select the server that contains the database you want to mark out of service.
  3. Click the Files tab.
  4. Do one of the following:
    • In the Task pane in the Domino® Administrator or the Web Administrator, select the folder or view that contains the database you want.
    • In the Task pane in the Domino® Administrator only, expand Cluster Directory, and then select the view you want.
  5. In the Results pane, select the database or databases you want.
  6. In the Tools pane, expand Database, and then click Cluster.
  7. Click Out of service, and then click OK.

What to do next

To mark all databases on a server out of service, when managing failover, use the SERVER_RESTRICTED setting. A restricted server does not accept new database open requests.