Configuring IBM Lotus Notes Traveler High Availability with an enterprise Microsoft SQL database

Introduction

The ability to run multiple IBM® Lotus® Notes® Traveler servers in a service pool has been added in Notes Traveler Upgrade Pack 1, allowing devices to connect to any server in the pool. Requests are received at any Notes Traveler server, and a determination is made either to service the request locally or to route the request to another server in the pool.

This decision is based on which server is currently monitoring mail for the user and server loads. If a server in the pool is stopped or otherwise unavailable, device requests can be handled by the other servers in the pool without requiring a recovery sync.

In addition, support for enterprise database Servers has been introduced to enable Notes Traveler High Availability (HA); specifically, IBM DB2® and Microsoft® SQL Server, for storing Notes Traveler Notes administration data and device synchronization data. An enterprise database is not required when running Lotus Notes Traveler on a single server.

Notes Traveler supports the transfer of existing administration and synchronization data from the standalone Derby database to the enterprise database. This allows the consolidation of existing Notes Traveler servers into a Notes Traveler HA pool. The HA architecture is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1. HA architecture

System requirements for HA

Here are the system requirements for HA:

• Notes Traveler server and device releases should be at version 8.5.3.
• Notes Traveler servers running in an HA Pool must run on 64-bit Microsoft Windows® or Linux® OS.
• You can migrate a 32-bit Notes Traveler server to a HA pool, but you should then retire the server and upgrade it to 64 bit.
• Must run on Lotus Domino® Enterprise or Utility Server 8.5.3.x.
• Must have an enterprise database, preferably remote and configured for disaster recovery and fail over.

• IP Sprayer / Load Balancer: Any proxy, load balancer, or IP sprayer capable of basic round-robin balancing function with no or limited session affinity.
• Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5.3 Upgrade Pack 1 (UP1) version numbers as shown in table 1.

Table 1. Notes Traveler UP1 version numbers

Component	Version	Build
Server	8.5.3.100	20120613_2102
Android	8.5.3.100	20120611_0951
Windows Mobile	8.5.3.2	20120528_2100
Nokia	8.5.3.2	20120525_1525

NOTE: Lotus Traveler 8.5.3 UP1 requires Domino 8.5.3 Upgrade Pack 1 but will install it if it is not already on the target system.

Detailed system requirement for Notes Traveler UP1 can be found in the IBM Support Techdoc #7027499, “Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5.3 Upgrade Pack 1 System Requirements.”

Deploying Notes Traveler HA

Upgrading the Domino server and Traveler server to 8.5.3 UP1

1. Make a backup of Lotustraveler.nsf, ntsclcache.nsf, Notes.ini, and the entire Traveler folder, which is in the Lotus Traveler server data directory.
2. Shut down the Domino server and upgrade it to 853 UP1. Note that, if you don't upgrade the Domino server to 8.5.3 UP1, then Traveler 8.5.3 UP1 installer will take care of upgrading it.
3. Run the Traveler UP1 Installer TravelerSetup.exe on Windows (see figure 2) or, on Linux (see figure 3), extract the Traveler UP1 .tar file (LOT_TRAV_853UP1_LIN_ML.tar) and run ./silentInstall with root user.

Figure 2. Traveler UP1 Install on Windows



Figure 3. Traveler UP1 Install on Linux



4. After the installation is successful, start the Domino server. You will see many activities running on the Domino server console related to Notes Traveler updating the existing information to UP1, for example, as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Example console messages



5. After some time Notes Traveler shows it is starting, followed by the remaining nine steps for upgrading it to UP1 (see figure 5).

Figure 5. Upgrade steps



6. Messages continue to appear until the tenth step, after which Notes Traveler restarts itself for the server configuration changes to take effect (see figure 6).

Figure 6. Notes Traveler restarting



7. Traveler has been successfully upgraded to 8.5.3 Upgrade Pack1. Now you must shut down the Domino server to carry out the HA configuration with MS SQL enterprise database.

8. Use the configuration utility, travelerUtil, to configure MS SQL Database. The travelerUtil utility is not new but, prior to 8.5.3 Upgrade Pack1, it was used solely for collecting logs when the Traveler server was not running.

9. Run <data>/traveler/util/travelerUtil -help for command reference:
10. Upgrade all Notes Traveler servers to the same version/release used by the HA pool.

Configure Notes Traveler for enterprise MS SQL database

There are two ways to configure Notes Traveler with the MS SQL database.

• Automatic:

• Administrator creates an empty database in SQL Server
• On startup Traveler creates/updates schema/tables/-indexes, etc., as needed

• Manual / Data Definition Language (DDL):

• Provides an advanced option for Database Administrator.
• Administrator customizes DDLs shipped with Traveler, from folder <data>/traveler/cfg/db
• Adding the Notes.ini parameter, NTS_AUTO_DB_SCHEMA=false, tells Traveler not to alter schema
• Administrator executes DDLs against SQL Server to generate schema/tables/indexes
• Future versions/fixpacks: Administrator runs incremental DDL's to update schema

In this article we use the Automatic method to configure the Notes Traveler for the MS SQL database.

Configure MS SQL database for Notes Traveler using SQL Server Management Studio

1. To launch the SQL Server Management Studio, from the Windows Start menu select Microsoft SQL server 2008 R2 --- SQL Server Management Studio (see figure 7).

Figure 7. Windows Start menu



2. Once you choose SQL Server Management Studio, a SQL Server Management Studio window launches, as shown in figure 8.

Figure 8. SQL Server Management Studio window



3. To connect to the SQL server, enter the computer name / host name and click Connect (see figure 9).

Figure 9. Server name



Figure 10 shows that you're now connected to SQL Server.

Figure 10. Connected to SQL Server



4. Create a database user by right-clicking the Logins folder under Security and selecting New Login, to create user profile in the SQL server (see figure 11).

Figure 11. Create database user



5. In the next window, enter a Login name and password for the user, and default language (the password policy can be as per your company policy). Accept the defaults for the other settings and click OK to create the profile (see figure 12).

Figure 12. Login – New window



The newly created profile, LNTDBUSER, can be seen under Logins in the SQL Server Management Studio (see figure 13)

Figure 13. New LNTDBUSER profile



Now let's create a Traveler database using the database wizard:

1. Right-click on Databases and select New Database (see figure 14).

Figure 14. New Database



2. In the New Database window, select the General page, enter a Database name, and select the Owner name as the above created LNTDBUSER user (see figure 15).

Figure 15. General page of New Database window



3. Select the Options page, set the Collation field as “Latin1_General_BIN”, and accept the defaults for the other settings (see figure 16); click OK to create the database.

Figure 16. Options page of New Database window



4. Database creation starts with the Progress showing “Executing” (see figure 17), and after a while the database will be created.

Figure 17. Executing database creation



5. To see the newly created database, select Databases --- TRAVELER (see figure 18).

Figure 18. New TRAVELER database

Configure Notes Traveler for enterprise MS SQL database

1. Ensure that the Traveler database is created and available on the MS SQL server.
2. Download the SQL Server JDBC Driver 3.0, sqljdbc4.jar, from the Microsoft Download Center.
3. Copy the sqljdbc4.jar file to the Notes Traveler server in the directory, <domino>\Traveler\lib\, for example:

4. Open a command prompt (cmd) on the Traveler server and change the directory to <domino data>\traveler\util> (see figure 19), for example, E:\Lotus\Domino\Data\traveler\util>.

Figure 19. Change directory


5. Run travelerUtil to configure Notes Traveler in the following format:

• Hostname of the SQL server
• Port number of database instance (default port is 1433)
• Database name and user name, password of database owner

For example:
TravelerUtil validates the MS SQL information and configures Notes Traveler to use the MS SQL instance instead of the Derby database. The credentials are encrypted and stored in the LotusTraveler.nsf (see figure 20).

Figure 20. Credentials encrypted and stored



6. To validate what you just configured, use the “travelerUtil db show” command or “travelerUtil db check”, as shown in figures 21 and 22, respectively.

Figure 21. travelerutil db show


Figure 22. travelerutil db check



7. For the Traveler server running on Linux, run the travelerUtil commands as the root user in the following format (see figure 23):
NOTE: The url command line parameter for SQL Server on Linux will not work because of the required semicolon, and you will be prompted for your database URL and JDBC file path. Here are example database URL for an SQL server and JDBC jar path:
Figure 23. travelUtil on Linux



8. To validate what you just configured, use the travelerUtil db show or travelerUtil db check command (see figures 24 and 25).

Figure 24. db show on Linux


Figure 25. db check on Linux



9. Start the Traveler server; the Server console will show the Traveler server transferring existing users sync data to HADR (see figure 26).

Figure 26. User's sync data transferred



NOTE: The time it takes to move the data to HADR depends on how much user's sync data exists in the Derby database of the existing Traveler server that you are adding as the first server in the HA pool. The more users who are on the Traveler server, the longer it will take.

Configuring a new Traveler server in the HA pool will take less time as all the data has been already transferred from the previous Traveler server.

When the second server is added in the Traveler HA pool, you can issue the “tell traveler hadr show” command on the server console to find the participating servers in the HA pool (see figure 27).

Figure 27. tell traveler hadr show

Traveler HA migration considerations

Keep the following points in mind when migrating to Traveler HA:

• It's recommended to start the server in standalone mode after upgrade.
• Derby will defrag, which may take over an hour.
• IMPORTANT: Add only one server to the pool at a time.
• The first server creates the pool and establishes default settings.
• On startup, users' data will be migrated to the enterprise database, which may take over an hour.
• Allow data migration to complete before adding another server.
• Use DNS or Proxy routing to prevent the need to reconfigure the device for a new access URL.
• Can add 32-bit server to the pool to migrate data, but you should then retire the system.
• Recommend IP Sprayer is Highly Available if possible; generally will be in DMZ.
• Recommend Highly Available database configuration.

Conclusion

By using this document you should now be able to configure Notes Traveler High Availability Pool in 8.5.3 Upgrade Pack 1 with an enterprise MS SQL database.

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Resources

Notes wiki article, “Configuring IBM Lotus Notes Traveler High Availability with an enterprise IBM DB2 database:”
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/dx/Configuring_IBM_Lotus_Notes_Traveler_High_Availability__with_an_enterprise_IBM_DB2_database

Product documentation topic, “Configuring the Lotus Notes Traveler High Availability Pool:”
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/dx/Configuring_the_Lotus_Notes_Traveler_High_Availability_Pool_A853UP1

Lotus Notes Traveler Product Documentation:
http://www.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/xpViewCategories.xsp?lookupName=Product%20Documentation

IBM Support Techdoc #7007909: “Index of system requirements for Notes, Domino, Domino Administrator, Domino Designer & Notes Traveler:”
https://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27007909

IBM Support Technote # 1450615, “Lotus Notes Traveler Support FAQ:”
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21450615

Product documentation, “Lotus Notes Traveler Companion FAQ:”
http://www.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/dx/Traveler_Companion_FAQ

Lotus Notes Traveler Support Community:
https://w3-connections.ibm.com/communities/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6cdeca04-36b9-441b-a27a-a82c1eb05a4a

Lotus Traveler Releases listing:
http://www.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/dx/Lotus_Notes_Traveler_APAR_listing

About the author

Shrikant Jamkhandi is a Senior Software Engineer at IBM's Pune, India, Lab, working with the Notes/Domino product. He has roughly 10 years of experience working in Domino environments such as Domino Core and Mail Messaging and is a Certified Lotus Professional. You can reach him at sjamkhandi@in.ibm.com .