High Availability for IBM FileNet Content Engine on WebSphere Application Server

Transcription

1 IBM High Availability for IBM FileNet Content Engine on WebSphere Application Server An in-depth guide for users to setup a High Availability environment for enterprise based application like IBM FileNet Content Engine. Dhananjaya Madiraju & Harshit K Agrawal 3/8/2012 Dhananjay is a FileNet P8 Install Developer at IBM-ISL for the past 3 ½ years. He is knowledgeable in most of the IBM Content Manager Installers like Content Engine, Process Engine, Workplace XT and their configurations. Reach out to him at dhananjay_m@in.ibm.com. Harshit is a FileNet P8 Quality Assurance Engineer at IBM- ISL for past 2 years. He has wide knowledge on installation and configurations of FileNet products like Content Engine, Process Engine, Case Manager, CFS-ICI, Application servers like WebSphere Application Server, Weblogic Application Server and JBoss along with combinations with databases like DB2 and SQL. Reach out to him at hagrawal3@in.ibm.com. IBM FileNet Content Engine is one of the core components of IBM FileNet P8 Platform and this tutorial is intended for those who would like to set it up in a highly available environment on an IBM WebSphere Application Server using IBM HTTP Server. It includes step by step procedure on how to setup a WAS Network Deployment environment, clustering(vertical and horizontal), federation of nodes, load balancing and so on with snapshots at almost all levels to guide you accurately.

2 Contents 1. Introduction to IBM FileNet Content Engine High Availability 2. WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Installation 3. Federation of Node 4. Cluster Creation 5. IBM HTTP Server and Plug-in Installation 6. WebServer and Plug-in Generation 7. IBM FileNet Content Engine Install and Configuration 8. Conclusion 9. Glossary 10. References 11. Authors Bio 2

3 Introduction to IBM FileNet Content Engine High Availability High availability is a well planned setup of products, which ensures that users are offered its services at all possible times without any noticeable outages or minimum downtime. To setup High Availability this tutorial uses a combination of WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment and IBM HTTP Server (IHS) as a software load balance to setup an Active/active cluster. The below figure shows an overview of the setup Figure 1:Architecture of WebSphere Cluster being created Client applications like Workplace XT communicate with IBM FileNet Content Engine over EJB and in a cluster environment leverages WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Workload Management (WLM) for High Availability and Load Balancing. 3

4 WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment Installation Cell Creation (Dmgr01 + AppSrv01): During installation of WebSphere Application Server ND choose Cell (deployment Manager and a managed node) to create a Deployment Manager. If WAS has already been installed run the Profile Management Tool (PMT) to create it. Figure 2: Create a Cell environment Once installation and Cell creation has been completed, perform the following tasks 1. Start the Deployment Manager (Dmgr01) <WebSphere Installation Directory>\profiles\Dmgr01\bin\startManager.bat 2. Start Node on first Application Server (AppSrv01) <WebSphere Installation Directory>\\profiles\AppSrv01\bin>startNode.bat Application Server Profile (AppSrv02) Creation: Create another Application Server profile via Profile Management Tool or command line on the same machine on which WAS ND was installed for a vertical cluster. Alternatively you can also create an Application Server profile on another machine to setup a horizontal cluster. Start the AppSrv02 server. <WebSphere Installation Directory>\profiles\AppSrv02\bin>startServer.bat server1 4

5 Federation of Node This section describes on how the node from AppSrv02 profile is federated to the Deployment Manager 1. Login into Deployment Manager Admin Console 2. Navigate to System administration -> Nodes -> Add Node as shown below Figure 3: Add Node from another Application Server profile 3. In the Next panel choose Managed node and click on Next Figure 4: Adding a Managed Node 5

6 4. Enter the details of the second Application Server (AppSrv02) and click on OK. Figure 5: Application Server details For Horizontal cluster: Provide the hostname / ip address of the machine on which AppSrv02 is located. The JMX connector type has to be SOAP. The JMX Connector port can be retrieved from the parameter SOAP connector port: in the file <WebSphere_Installation_Directory>\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv02\logs\ AboutThisProfile.txt. 6

7 Figure 6: Node being federated into Deployment Manager Once federation is done, the AppSrv02 profile cannot be accessed using its administration console, instead is done via the Deployment Manager s Administration Console 7

8 Cluster Creation 1. From the Deployment Manager Admin Console navigate to Servers -> Clusters -> WebSphere application server clusters and click on New as shown below. Figure 7: Creating a Cluster 2. Provide a unique name for the Cluster and click on Next. Figure 8: Providing a Cluster Name 3. Now in the section Select basis for first cluster member, choose the third option to add the server(server1) from the first Application Server profile (AppSrv01) 8

9 Figure 9: Create First Cluster Member 4. Now let s create another cluster member in the second application server profile (AppSrv02). Figure 10: Add Additional Cluster Members Provide a new member name (Say server2), choose the Node from AppSrv02 in the drop down menu and click on Add Member button. You shall see that a new member has been added. 9

10 Figure 11: New Cluster Member added Clicking on Next takes you to the summary page, click on Finish and then save the changes. 5. You can now Ripplestart the cluster, this action may take sometime please wait. Figure 12: Starting Cluster 10

11 IBM HTTP Server and Plug-in Installation IBM HTTP Server Plug-in is used between the application layer (Workplace XT in our case) and WebSphere Application Server, it handles the requests from applications and redirects traffic to various Nodes in the cluster. Follow the below process to setup IBM HTTP server and plug-in. 1. Run the IBM HTTP server installer and choose default options, in the Windows Service Definition panel enable the following settings. You don t have to enter the password for the local system account. Figure 13: Run HTTP Server and Administrator as Windows Service 2. User doesn t have to create a user ID, so disable the check box. Figure 14: Disable User ID Creation 11

12 3. Enable the check box, to install IBM HTTP Server Plug-in for WebSphere Application Server Figure 15: Install HTTP Server Plug-in Once installation has been completed, check if the HTTP services are running Figure 16: Start HTTP Services if stopped To confirm HTTP server successful installation and see if the HTTP services are up and running check the following url or 12

13 WebServer and Plug-in Generation 1. Login into Deployment Manager Admin Console and navigate to Web servers creation page as and click on New Figure 17: Create WebServer 2. Choose the first Node from the drop down, provide a name for the Web Server, and choose IBM HTTP Server in the Web server type. Click Next, Figure 18: Enter WebServer details Go ahead to Step 3: Enter the properties for the new Web server 13

14 3. The default values should work fine, unless you have chosen a custom install path and port during IBM HTTP Server installation. Go ahead to step 4 (summary panel) Figure 19: HTTP Server details Click on Finish to create the webserver. 4. Click on the hyperlink Save, after enabling the Synchronize changes with Nodes check box. Figure 20: Saving changes done 14

15 5. Select the webserver1 created, and generate Plug-in Generate Plug-in Figure 21: Generate Plug-in Click on Propagate Plug-in button for the webserver1, we just created. This copies the plugin-cfg.xml file to IBM HTTP server installation directory 6. Restart the Cluster in the following order Stop WebServer (via Admin Console) Stop Cluster and its members Stop both the Nodes Restart the Deployment Manager Start both the Nodes Synchronize the Nodes (via Admin Console->System Administration->Nodes->Select any one Node ->Synchronize) Start Cluster members and cluster Propagate the plug-in again, and then start the WebServer 7. To ensure the Cluster setup is working fine, run the snoop servlet using the generic url, and check if the below snap is observed. This confirms that users don t have to use individual port numbers of Application Servers to access the application. Figure 22: Snoop Servlet accessed at Cluster level 15

16 IBM FileNet Content Engine Install and Configuration We shall now install and configure IBM FileNet Content Engine onto the cluster setup. 1. Installation of Content Engine is straight forward; perform it either in silent or GUI mode. 2. Once installation is done successfully, run the Configuration Manager tool from <CE_Install_Directory>\tools\configure\configmgr.exe 3. Choose WebSphere Application Server. Figure 23: Choose Application Server 16

17 4. Provide a name for the Profile, and leave the profile directory location as it is. Figure 24: CMUI Profile Details 5. Enter the details of either of the Application server profile paths, Deployment Manager SOAP port in the next panel and perform a test connection as shown below. Figure 25: Profile Environment Details 17

18 6. Enable all the tasks to be run Figure 26: Tasks to be run in CMUI 7. Before running a task, create a WebSphere Variable based on the Database type you choose. For more information on the WebSphere Variable and how to update / run the tasks please refer to the below link Note: In Deploy Application task, choose Cluster in Deployment Type choice list. Post Deployment, navigate to Enterprise Applications -> FileNetEngine -> Manage Modules. Choose all the modules, select the cluster and WebServer and click on apply and then ok. 18

19 Figure 27: Targeting modules onto Cluster and WebServer Restart the entire Cluster setup in the below order Stop WebServer (via Admin Console) Stop Cluster and its members Stop both the Nodes Restart the Deployment Manager Start both the Nodes Synchronize the Nodes (via Admin Console->System Administration->Nodes->Select any one Node ->Synchronize) Start Cluster members and cluster Start the application, if it s stopped. 8. Now that the FileNet Engine application has been deployed onto the cluster, to test the sanity of the setup open the following link If the ping page is seen without any issues, then the Cluster setup for IBM FileNet Content Engine is done. 19

20 Figure 28: FileNet Ping Page accessed at Cluster level 20

21 Conclusion To verify the cluster setup, we can bring down either of the servers and observe the IBM FileNet Content Engine ping page to check if the service requests have been automatically redirected to the other running servers. Figure 29: Ping Page with server1 down (Application Server Profile, AppSrv01) 21

22 Figure 30: Ping Page with server2 down (Application Server Profile, AppSrv02) Glossary: Cell: Is a grouping of nodes into a single administrative domain. In a Network Deployment environment, a cell can consist of multiple nodes, which are all administered from a single point, the deployment manager Deployment Manager: Is a central administration point of a cell that consists of multiple nodes. The deployment manager uses the node agent to manage the application servers within one node. Node: Is an administrative grouping of application servers for configuration and operational management within one operating system instance Node Agent: In distributed server configurations, each node has a Node Agent that works with the deployment manager to manage administration processes. A node agent is created automatically when you add (federate) a stand-alone node to a cell 22

23 Cluster: Is a logical collection of application server processes that provides workload balancing and high availability. Application servers that belong to a cluster are members of that cluster. The members of a cluster can be located on a single node (vertical cluster), across multiple nodes (horizontal cluster), or on a combination of the two. High Availability: Availability is a measure of the time that a server is functioning normally, as well as a measure of the time the recovery process requires after the system fails Load Balancing: Load balancing spreads tasks among all available Nodes. It is a key to processing capacity and scalability. Load balancing means ensuring that processing requests are distributed appropriately among all the available servers Ripplestart Cluster: Ripplestart combines stopping and starting operations. It first stops and then restarts each member of the cluster. For example, your cluster contains 3 cluster members named server_1, server_2 and server_3. When you click Ripplestart, server_1 stops and restarts, then server_2 stops and restarts, and finally server_3 stops and restarts. Active/active cluster: In an active/active cluster configuration, two or more application server instances are configured to serve the same application workload. The active/active cluster can be front-ended by using a load balancer. And, the traffic can be redirected over to any of the active instances. Active/passive cluster: In an active/passive cluster, only one instance of the application server is running. The specific node that hosts the application load in an active/passive cluster is called the active node. The secondary node that can potentially host the application load is called the passive node. In an active/passive cluster at any time, there is only one node active to cater to the application load. References: %20Balance Authors Bio: Harshit K Agrawal: hagrawal3@in.ibm.com Harshit is a FileNet P8 Quality Assurance Engineer at IBM-ISL for past 2 years. He has wide knowledge on installation and configurations of FileNet products like Content Engine, Process Engine, Case Manager, CFS-ICI, Application servers like WebSphere Application Server, Weblogic Application Server and JBoss along with combinations with databases like DB2 and SQL. Dhananjaya Madiraju: dhananjay_m@in.ibm.com Dhananjay is a FileNet P8 Install Developer at IBM-ISL for the past 3 ½ years. He is knowledgeable in most of the IBM Content Manager Installers like Content Engine, Process Engine, Workplace XT, Case Manager and their configurations. 23