High Availability Clustering With Alfresco

Slide 1: Clustering Alfresco Michael Farman Director of Product Management www.alfresco.com View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 2: Alfresco Server Components H P/CIFS/NFS/W TT ebDAV/FTP ● Vertical Scalability Clients ● Note: 1.5GB JVM Limit on 32 bit Alfresco Server ● Multiple Points of Failure ● Application Server Tomcat ● Content and Index Storage EHCache ● Database Database Index & Content MySQL Store View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 3: What needs to be clustered? HTTP/CIFS/NFS/WebDAV/FTP ● EHCache Clients ● Single Configuration File Rename Production A ● Index ● Note: Each server must have its Tomcat own index ● Single Configuration File EHCache ● Only for recovery ● Content ● 2 Config Files • Define Content Store Locations Database • Declare the Stores Index & Content MySQL • Set Replication Type Store ● Database ● Native Database Clustering View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 4: Content Clustering Replicating Content Stores ● Used to synchronise content between content stores ● Inbound ● Outbound ● On Read ● On Write ● ‘Pulls’ content from secondary ● ‘Push’ content from primary store to primary store store to secondary store ● Synchronous (Transactional) or Asynchronous A Primary Primary A Content Content Secondary A Replicating Content Store A Content Store Replicating Content Store View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 5: Replicating Content Stores In Action Inbound Outbound 4. Request Content ‘A’ A 1. Write A A 8. ‘A’ Delivered Subsequent Requests Served from B Primary Production B Store Production A A Primary Primary A 5. Not Found in Primary Content Content 2. ‘A’ written to Primary 7. Copy stored in Primary Secondary A Replicating Content Store A Content Store Replicating Content Store 3. ‘A’ copied to secondary 6. Requested from Secondary (sync/async) Note: Production A and B Do not know anything about each other Allows additional servers to be added without reconfiguring A or B

Slide 6: Clustered Server - Shared DB and Content HT T P/CIFS/WebDAV/FTP Clients √ Horizontal Scalability Load Balancer X Multiple Points of Failure ● Content Storage* Production A Production B ● Database Tomcat Tomcat EHCache EHCache ● Note: Each server needs it’s own local index Index Database Index MySQL * Could be on highly available disk such a SAN storage Content Store View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 7: Clustered Server - Shared Database HT T P/CIFS/WebDAV/FTP Clients √ Horizontal Scalability Load Balancer X Single Point of Failure ● Database Production A Production B ● Replicating Content Tomcat Tomcat Store ● In and Outbound EHCache EHCache Replication ● No need to change config for existing Primary Index* Database Index* Primary servers when adding Content MySQL Content additional servers • Index recovery component not shown Secondary Us e d to s ync h ronis e inde xe s wh e n Replicating Content Replicating ne c e s s a ry e .g . Afte r s e rve r re s ta rt Content Store Store Content Store

Slide 8: Database Clustering Master - Slave ● Use Native DB Clustering Capabilities ● Specifics Database (and O/S) Dependent ● Master – Slave ● Master acts as primary ● Slave as backup ● Bring slave online on JDBC master failure • Scripts • O/S Level Clustering DB Master DB Slave MySQL MySQL ● Note: Use DB connection <- Failover -> pool to avoid Alfresco server restarts Database Clustering View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 9: Database Clustering Master - Master ● Use Native DB Clustering Capabilities ● Specifics Database (and O/S) Dependent ● Master – Master ● Can be used for distributed deployment ● Network JDBC JDBC performance may be a factor DB Master DB Master MySQL MySQL <- Replication -> Database Clustering View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 10: Configuring a 2 Server Cluster Quick Start Guide ● Server A 1. Standard Install 2. Configure A’s Primary and the Secondary Store Locations ● custom-repository.properties 3. Enable Index Tracking ● index.tracking.cronExpression in custom-repository.properties 4. Enable Content Replication between these locations ● replicating-content-services-context.xml ● Define the Shared Content Store ● Define in/outbound replication between the stores 5. Enable Index Tracking 1. custom-repository.properties 2. index.tracking.cronExpression=0/2 * * * * ? (default entry is 2099 i.e. never) 6. Enable ● ehcache-custom.xml - Rename the sample 7. Startup ● Server B 1. Copy A’s Install 2. Configure B’s Primary Content Store – Only required if stores path different ● repository.properties ● Note: Secondary Store Location – Same as A 3. Startup with Full Index Recovery – custom-repository.properties

Slide 11: Tips & Troubleshooting ● Starting the server without an index: ● custom-repository.properties ● system.bootstrap.config_check.strict=false ● Always use a fully qualified path to your content and index store locations ● custom-repository.properties • dir.root=c:\\mystorage ● Rebuilding indexes ● You cannot copy indexes from a running server ● Shutdown and copy or use server generated backup copy ● System Clocks must be in sync on all servers ● 1 second by default View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 12: More Information ● Content Community – www.alfresco.com ● Alfresco High Availability and Clustering Guide ● http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/High_Availability_Configuration View the recorded webinar here: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster

Slide 13: View the recorded webinar: http://tinyurl.com/alfresco-cluster