Set up a cluster on Windows
Clusters enable you to scale WebSphere Portal configuration. Clusters also enable enterprise applications to be highly available because requests are automatically routed to the running servers in the event of a failure. There are numerous cluster configuration, such as horizontal, vertical, multiple, and dynamic.
Prerequisites
Late breaking installation limitations and issues
The following illustration depicts a horizontal cluster configuration where IBMWebSphere Portal is installed on multiple servers. This configuration reduces single points of failure, but requires more hardware.
To conserve hardware, you can also set up a vertical cluster with multiple portal instances on a single node.
In response to customer requests, the instructions to setup WebSphere Portal has been improved to provide OS specific instructions for setting up a production environment. Select OS to get started.
After completing the installation remember to tune the servers in the portal environment in order to achieve better performance. The Base Portal Tuning scenarios in the WebSphere Portal and Lotus Web Content Management 6.1.x Performance Tuning Guide provides information about tuning the WAS, WebSphere Portal services, databases, directory servers and more. Base Portal Tuning scenarios are the foundation to most performance tuning. In a cluster environment, there are additional steps you should take to tune WAS, the Web server, and more. First review and take the necessary steps provided in the Base Portal Tuning scenarios, then review and take additional necessary steps in the Tuning a Cluster Environment chapter of the tuning guide.
<a href="http://www.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/Base_portal_tuning_%28Tuning_Guide_6.1.x%29" target="external">Base Portal Tuning scenarios</a><img src="../external.gif">
<a href="http://www.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/Tuning_a_cluster_environment_%28Tuning_Guide_6.1.x%29" target="external">Tuning a cluster environment</a><img src="../external.gif">
- 1. Prepare the Windows OS
View information on setting up OS for IBM WebSphere Portal. you want to install for information.
2. Prepare the primary node on Windows
Before creating high availability environment, install IBM WebSphere Portal on primary node and then configure database and network dmgr.
3. Prepare the WAS Deployment Manager on Windows
IBM WebSphere Portal provides a customized installation package (CIP) that includes IBM WAS Network Deployment and all required maintenance packages. Use the supplied discs to install WAS Network Deployment on a dedicated system.
4. Prepare to create the cluster on Windows
If you installed a IBM WAS Network Deployment, create a static cluster to handle failover requests. If you installed a IBM WebSphere Virtual Enterprise, create a dynamic cluster to balance member workloads.
5. Prepare a remote Web server when portal is installed on Windows in a clustered environment
Install and configure the Web server plug-in, provided by IBM WAS, to set up Web server to communicate with IBM WebSphere Portal.
6. Configure WebSphere Portal to use a user registry on Windows in a clustered environment
Configure user registry security on IBM WebSphere Portal to protect server from unauthorized users. You can configure a stand-alone LDAP user registry or you can add LDAP user registries and/or database user registries to the default federated repository. After configuring user registry, you can add realms for Virtual Portals or a lookaside database to store attributes that cannot be stored in the LDAP user registry.
7. Prepare additional nodes on Windows
After installing and configuring primary node, you can create additional cluster nodes. You must install IBM WebSphere Portal on each node and then configure the node to access the database and user registry before adding it to the cluster.
Tune the servers is important to the performance of WebSphere Portal environment. WebSphere Portal is not tuned for a production environment out of the box, so to ensure optimal performance, review and complete the steps in the IBM WebSphere Portal Tuning Guide. Even if a tuning guide is not available for the current release of WebSphere Portal, the tuning guide for the previous product version should be used.
9. Configure search in a cluster on Windows
IBM WebSphere Portal provides two distinct search capabilities. You can use both types of search capabilities in a clustered environment.
10. Set up multiple clusters on Windows
The majority of the steps to build another cluster are the same as when building the first cluster in the same cell, with a few exceptions. Basically, the new profile will be designated as the primary profile, using IBM WebSphere Portal clustering terminology, and will then be used as the basis for the new cluster definition. This duplicates the build process of the first cluster in the cell. During the federation process, if any applications on this new node already exist in the cell (because they are in use by the first cluster), then Deployment Manager will not allow them to be added. After federation, the applications that already exist in the cell are not mapped to the WebSphere_Portal server on the newly federated node, and thus the existing applications must be remapped to this newly federated server to restore its application list. Therefore, depending on the configuration of the new profile, there will likely be some combination of applications shared with the other existing cluster, and some applications unique to this new profile.
11. Share database domains between clusters on Windows
To help provide redundancy and failover support in production environments composed of multiple clusters in a single cell and multiple clusters in different cells, you can share database domains between those clusters. IBM WebSphere Portal data is organized into different database domains, with different availability requirements depending on how the production environment is set up. When multiple lines of production are involved and each line of production is implemented as a cluster of servers, sharing database domains ensures that the data is automatically synchronized across the lines of production.
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