On Premise Multi-Server Support Guide

Transcription

1 On Premise Multi-Server Support Guide

2 Copyright 2013 Sage Technologies Limited, publisher of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this documentation may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, microfilmed, or otherwise duplicated on any medium without prior written consent of Sage Technologies Limited. Use of the software programs described herein and this documentation is subject to the End User Licence Agreement enclosed in the software package, or accepted during system sign-up. Sage, and the Sage logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of The Sage Group PLC. All other marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 2 of 11

3 Contents Introduction... 4 Prerequisites... 4 Installation... 4 Tomcat... 5 Install Steps... 5 To install CRM on the server on which the database will reside:... 5 To install the other CRM servers:... 5 Configuration... 7 Load Balancing In Sage CRM... 8 Distributing Services on Multi-Server... 9 How to distribute services... 9 Customisations On Multi-Server... 9 Customisations Using Metadata... 9 Custom ASP Pages... 9 Troubleshooting Multi-Server Issues Standard Steps Known Issues Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 3 of 11

4 Introduction Sage CRM can be implemented in a fully distributed environment, where a single database is accessible through multiple servers. The main benefit of the Multi-Server CRM solution is enhanced performance due to efficient load balancing. The load balancing can be performed by CRM or by a dedicated load balancing application. This guide applies to Sage CRM On Premise versions 7.0 to 7.2. Prerequisites To install Multi-server CRM you need: To decide which servers in the cluster you want to install the CRM application on. You also need to decide what database server the database is to be created on. In a typical multi-server Sage CRM environment, Sage CRM install files will be created on the Web/Application servers and the database will reside on a separate, dedicated database server. A valid license key that includes Multi-Server CRM. Your license key can be used on all of the servers in the cluster you are about to set up. SQL Client tools are a requirement on other web servers in the Cluster.ie. Client tools include the client connectivity components used by an application connecting to an instance of SQL Server. So not only our application, but other web applications connecting to a remote database, will absolutely require SQL Client tools for the web and database servers to communicate. Installation To install Multi-server CRM, start by installing Sage CRM on the first or primary web server. This first install should also install the CRM database to the database server. Subsequently you can install CRM on the other web servers in the cluster. The database will not be installed for those installations as the CRM database only needs to be installed once during the multi-server CRM installation. In multi-server environments, only one single Replication Engine instance should be installed on the first server in a group. To accommodate the Interactive Dashboard and SData features, a Tomcat service is installed on the web server. In a multi-server CRM environment, the Tomcat service is installed on each web server in the cluster. Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 4 of 11

5 Tomcat The Tomcat files are located in..\program Files\Sage\CRM\[installname]\tomcat If changes are made to custom tables on the database, the Tomcat service on each web server will reload its metadata (so will the EWARE.DLL on each web server). Install Steps To install CRM on the server on which the database will reside: 1. Follow the instructions on the setup screen as you would for a typical CRM installation. 2. Take note of the installation name specified in the Installation name dialog box. This name is required when you are installing the other servers in the Multi server CRM environment. 3. The database will be automatically installed on the server as it would be in a normal CRM installation. To install the other CRM servers: 1. Follow the instructions on the setup screen as you would for a typical CRM installation. 2. Ensure that the name entered in the installation name dialog box is the same name which was specified during the original CRM installation. 3. Check the location in the Choose Destination dialog box, select Next. 4. Change the name in the Database Server field to the server on which the CRM database was installed previously. Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 5 of 11

6 5. When the next dialog box is displayed, select No as this will ensure the database is not installed on this server. 6. Install all of the other servers in a similar manner following the steps above. Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 6 of 11

7 Configuration To configure the Multi server settings go to Administration System Database. The following screen is displayed: Field Distributed CRM web Server Names(semi-colon separated): Description The names of all the CRM Servers in the cluster Distributed CRM web server IP addresses (can use wildcards) CRM will only accept incoming requests for usercount from these IP addresses for security reasons Do Load Balancing Fully qualified CRM web server names (must match server names order, used for load balancing, can be blank) DTLS Server Name Set to true, load balancing is performed by CRM. The load balancing in CRM uses a simple round robin algorithm to place user sessions by doing a user count on each server and sending the next session to the server with the lowest number. If you want to use a specialized separate application to perform the load balancing, set the option to False The domain name for CRM Web Servers consists of the host name and the domain name. For example, a fully qualified domain name for a mail server mymail.sage.com. In this example, the hostname is mymail, and the host is located within the domain sage.com. Delayed Table Level Script. This is the name of the server that will run all Table Level Scripts. Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 7 of 11

8 Load Balancing In Sage CRM 1. User types the CRM URL into their web browser, e.g Webserver1 has 4 users logged on. It sends a request to webserver2 stating how many users it currently has logged on. 3. Webserver2 sends back 3 users. 4. Webserver1 gives the logon screen back to the user, specifying that the logon information should be submitted to webserver2. These requests are hidden. 5. User types in their log on information and clicks logon. User is now logged on to webserver2. 1. When a new User logs in, Sage CRM first checks what Web Servers [if any] exist. In a distributed environment, the.dll file checks with the Custom_Sysparams that the parm_name ServerNames has more than one value If this is higher than 1 then the behaviour is a multi-server Sage CRM environment. 2. The next check is the Do Load Balancing setting in CRM if set to true then it means Sage CRM will be using Sage CRM s own load balancing software. 3. Next the.dll goes ahead and requests the User Count on each of the Web Servers identified under the ServerNames Custom_Sysparam. The number of users on each server is calculated, the name of the server with the lowest number of users is obtained. 4. The end user is submitted to the server with the lowest number of logged on users. Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 8 of 11

9 Distributing Services on Multi-Server How to distribute services The CRM Services (Escalation, Indexer, Integration and Manager) only need one instance on each server running in the server cluster For example, a four server environment: 1. Server 1(Primary App Server) - Has Integration and Manager Services running on it, and is also the document library folder is on this server 2. Server 2(App Server 2) Has the Escalation Service running 3. Server 3(App Sever 3) Has the Indexing Service running 4. Server 4(Database Server) No CRM installed here Note: The Tomcat service runs on each application server as a service. Customisations on Multi-Server Customisations Using Metadata Any customisation carried out in metadata on one server will be reflected on all the other application servers in the cluster. Metadata is refreshed once any of these customisations is carried out on any of the application servers. If an admin user adds a new field for the company entity, this field will also automatically appear for a user logged into another web server. Whenever metadata changes occur, the system param MetadataVersion value in custom_sysparams is incremented. All the other application servers check this value approx. every 12 clicks to and will request a metadata check if necessary. Custom ASP Pages Custom pages on one of the web servers will not be reflected on the other webservers. If you create new entities using the custom entity wizard on one of the web servers, you will not be able to see it when you log into another web server. Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 9 of 11

10 CRM creates the ASP page in the Custom Pages directory local to the webserver that the entity was created on. To resolve this you may copy the contents of the custom pages directory on the server the ASP page was created on to the other web servers in the cluster Troubleshooting Multi-Server Issues Most multi-server issues fall in the area of the load balancing (built in load-balancer) not working correctly. Issues using with load balancing using a hardware/software load balancer would reside with that vendor. Below are a few troubleshooting steps which should resolve most issues if an issue with load balancing arises. Standard Steps 1. First ensure you can log onto each of the application servers directly by typing in the correct addresses for Sage CRM manually. 2. Check the configuration in Administration System Database. Ensure all fields have the correct IP addresses, server names etc. 3. If the IP addresses are dynamic on the servers, ensure that they are up to date on the configuration screen. You can check a server s IP by typing ipconfig command in the command prompt 4. Next clear the cache on each web browser which is having an issue. 5. If still having an issue, go to the Administration System Database screen, and start removing each field in turn and then test if the problem has dissipated. For example remove the information in the Fully Qualified CRM web server names and test your issue. If this has not resolved the issue, repopulate that field and move to the next field. Known Issues 1. Errors in document storage, cannot find the documents error: Fix by enabling permissions in IIS/Application pool for IUSR - Change the Identity for the CRM application pools in both servers from local system to the domain admin who has access to the shared folder on server one. 2. Load balancing does not work with IIS Auto Login: When logging in the eware.dll checks to see which web server has the least amount of users, when using IIS autologin the login screen is bypassed which means no load balancing checks take place. 3. Not balancing correctly Possible IPV6 address conflict Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 10 of 11

11 Check to see if the webservers are using IPV6 addresses and then ensure these are entered correctly in the parm values on the database. 4. Web servers down Users not being directed to active server: Sage CRM load balancing cannot handle the event of Sage CRM Application servers failing. The load balancer will still do a user count on the server that is down and will misidentify the server as having no Sage CRM users and attempt to forward all login requests to this server. The Load Balancer also has no means of measuring each servers utilisation and relies on user count alone. Sage CRM Multi Server Support Guide Page 11 of 11