As an administrator, you can set up cluster configurations for Focal Point on an application server.
About this task
For information about setting up the clusters in Apache Tomcat server and WebSphere Application Server, see the server documentation.
▪ Synchronize the time between the systems that are running on a cluster node. Typically, time synchronization between systems is done by using the network time protocol.
▪ If you set up clusters in WebSphere Application Server, ensure that Configure HTTP session memory-to-memory replication is not selected. After you set up the clusters in WebSphere Application Server, in the custom properties for JVM, add WAS_SERVER_NAME, with the cluster name as the value.
By default, Focal Point uses multicasting that is based on IGMP in order to automatically discover cluster nodes. Automatic node discovery uses port numbers 40001, 40002 and higher as the cache listener ports for each node in the setup. But only the nodes that are reachable and accessible through discovery are included in the cluster setup. In order to deploy cluster setup in environments that do not support multicasting, you must enable manual discovery of peer nodes.
Procedure
1 Start the application server, and then make sure that Focal Point is running.
2 Complete the following steps to set a multicast group address in the database by setting an unused administratively-scoped (local) multicast address on your network.
Note You must complete this step even if your environment does not support multicasting.
a Log in to Focal Point.
b From the User menu, click Administration, and then click Advanced.
c Click SQL and insert the following code:
insert into projectsetting (pid,name,value) values (‑2,'multicast.group.address','multicast_address')
For example, to set 239.0.0.1 as multicast address in the network, insert this code:
insert into projectsetting (pid,name,value) values (‑2,'multicast.group.address','239.0.0.1')
Make sure that this multicast address does not interfere with other multicast address on your network.
d Click Execute.
3 If your environment does not support multicasting, make the following changes in the fp.properties file of each node in the cluster.
Note This step is for the manual peer discovery only. You can skip the step, if your environment supports multicasting.
where server_2, ...server_n are the host names or IP addresses of the other nodes in the cluster setup.
4 Configure firewall settings:
▪ Focal Point cluster setup uses the java.net.InetAddress.isReachable() call to make sure that all nodes in the set up are reachable. Internally, ICMP ECHO REQUESTs are used to reach the destination host, otherwise a TCP connection to port 7 (ccho) on the destination host is attempted. Hence the ICMP ping (echo) should be enabled between all nodes in the cluster.
▪ Firewall rules should not block incoming and outgoing traffic on the cache listener port (default= 40001) and remoteObject port (default=40002) on each node.
5 To use a common help URL across the clustered instances, from the User menu, click Administration, and then click Advanced > SQL. Insert the following code, and then click Execute.
update projectsetting set value='HELP_URL_VALUE' where name='help.alternate.url' and pid=-2
For example:
update projectsetting set value='http://www.example.com:8080/fphelp/index.jsp' where name='help.alternate.url' and pid=-2
6 To ensure that only a single license is consumed for a user who logs into multiple nodes, from the User menu, click Administration and then click Advanced > SQL. Insert the following code, and then click Execute.
update projectsetting set value='CLUSTER_NAME' where pid=-2 and name='fp.cluster.name'
For example:
update projectsetting set value='CLUSTER1' where pid=-2 and name='fp.cluster.name'
7 Restart the Focal Point servers in all the nodes.
Websphere application server documentation