Administer clusters

Clusters allow you to manage multiple application servers simultaneously and enable workload management. For descriptions of cluster properties, see Server cluster settings.

For instructions on administering clusters, see these sections:

• Configure clusters
• Modify clusters
• Remove clusters

Configure clusters

To create a cluster, follow these steps:

1. Start the administrative console.
2. In the topology tree, expand Servers and click Clusters.
3. On the Server Cluster page, click New.
4. On the Create New Cluster type a name for the cluster.
5. By default the Prefer local enabled checkbox is selected. If you do not want to route requests to the local node whenever possible, clear this checkbox. It is recommended that you accept the default setting.
6. To enable memory-to-memory replication of HttpSession (for failover) or replication of cached data and cache invalidations with a Web container's dynamic caching, select the Create Replication Domain for this cluster checkbox.
7. Choose whether to include an existing application server in the cluster. It is recommended that you include an existing server.
   • To create an empty cluster, select Do not include an existing server in this cluster.
   • To create a cluster based on an existing server, select Select an existing server to add to this cluster and select the application server from the drop-down list.

8. Click Next.
9. If you want to include more cluster members in the cluster, you can create new application servers (cluster members) to become part of the cluster. For each new cluster member, follow these steps:
   1. Type the name of a new cluster member to add to the cluster.
   2. Select the node on which the server will reside.
   3. Specify the server weight. The weight value controls the amount of work directed to the application server. If the weight value for the server is greater than the weight values assigned to other servers in the cluster, then the server will receive a larger share of the servers' work load. The value can range from 0 to 100.
   4. Specify whether to generate a unique HTTP port.
   5. Specify whether to create a replication entry for the server.
   6. Specify the server template. You can choose to create the new cluster member based on the default application server template, or based on an existing application server.
   7. Click Apply. The cluster member is created and the Create New Clustered Servers screen is displayed with the information for the cluster member you just created. To create additional cluster members, repeat the steps above.

10. Click Next.
11. Click Finish.
12. Save the configuration.

Modify a cluster

To modify a cluster, follow these steps:

1. Start the administrative console.
2. In the topology tree, expand Servers and click Clusters.
3. On the Server Cluster page, click the cluster's name to view the settings for the cluster.
4. Make your changes.
5. Click OK.
6. Save the configuration.

Note: If you do not save the administrative configuration, only the Configuration and Local Topology tabs are available. After you save the administrative configuration, Runtime tab is also available.

Remove a cluster

To remove a cluster and all of its cluster members, follow these steps:

1. Start the administrative console.
2. In the topology tree, expand Servers and click Clusters.
3. Select the checkbox for the cluster that you want to remove.
4. Click Delete.
5. Save the configuration.