Configuring IBM Lotus Notes Traveler High Availability with an enterprise IBM DB2 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 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.

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

Upgrade 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 IBM DB2 Enterprise Database.

8. Use the configuration utility, travelerUtil, to configure for enterprise DB2 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 DB2 database

There are two ways to configure Notes Traveler with the DB2 database:

Automatic:

• Administrator creates empty database in DB2 Server
• DB2 database must use UTF 8 encoding if any Domino IDs contain double-byte character sets (DBCS), national language, or other special characters
• On startup, Notes 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
• By adding the Notes.ini parameter, NTS_AUTO_DB_SCHEMA=false, tells Traveler not to alter schema
• Administrator executes DDLs against DB2 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 Notes Traveler for the DB2 database.

Configure DB2 database for Notes Traveler using the DB2 Configuration Wizard

1. Launch the DB2 Control Center. Start this from the DB2 System tray in Windows (see figure 7) or by using Start --- All Programs --- IBMDB2 --- DB2Copy1 --- General Administration Tools --- Control Center (figure 8).

Figure 7. Launch from System tray



Figure 8. Launch via Start menu



2. Once you select the control center, a Control Center window launches (see figure 9).

Figure 9. Control Center window



3. Right -click on All Databases, and select Create Database --- Standard (see figure 10).

Figure 10. Create Standard Database



4. The Create Database Wizard window displays. Select “Name” from the left-hand pane, enter the Database name, Default path to save the database, Alias, and Comment (see figure 11).

Figure 11. Create Database Wizard window



5. Select Region, change the Code set drop-down field to UTF-8 (see figure 12). UTF-8 encoding is used if any Domino IDs contain DBCS, national language, or other special characters.

Figure 12. Specify UTF-8 code set



6. Now select Summary, to view the information you've entered for database creation, and click Finish to create the Traveler database (see figure 13). Accept the defaults settings for each attribute, unless otherwise noted.

Figure 13. View actions



The Progress window pops up, showing the Creating Database – Traveler message (see figure 14).

Figure 14. Progress window



After some time another window, DB2 Message, displays, confirming successful creation of the database (see figure 15).

Figure 15. DB2 Message window



The newly created database can be seen in the Control Center under All Databases (see figure 16).

Figure 16. Traveler database under All Databases

Configure Notes Traveler for enterprise DB2 database

To do this:

1. Ensure that the Notes Traveler database DB is created and available on the DB2 server.
2. On the DB2 server locate the file, db2jcc4.jar, in <db2_install_dir>\sqllib\java\
3. Copy db2jcc4.jar from the DB2 server to the Notes Traveler server in the directory <domino>\Traveler\lib\, for example:

4. Open a command prompt (cmd) on the Notes Traveler server and change the directory to <domino data>\traveler\util>, for example, E:\Lotus\Domino\Data\traveler\util> (see figure 17).

Figure 17. Change directory


5. Run travelerUtil, to configure Lotus Notes Traveler, as follows:

where the URL for DB2 consists of:

• Hostname of the DB2 server
• Port number of database instance (default port is 50000)
• Database name and user name, password of DB2 server

Figure 18. Credentials encrypted and stored



6. To validate what you just configured, use the travelerUtil “db show” command or the travelerUtil “db check”, as shown in figures 19 and 20, respectively.

Figure 19. db show



Figure 20. db check


7. For Notes Traveler server running on Linux, run the travelerUtil commands as the root user in the following format (see figure 21):
Figure 21. travelUtil on Linux



8. To validate what you just configured, use the travelerUtil “db show” command or the travelerUtil “db check,” as shown in figures 22 and 23, respectively.

Figure 22. db show on Linux


Figure 23. db check on Linux



9. Start the Notes Traveler server; the server console will show Traveler server transferring existing users sync data to HADR (see figure 24).

Figure 24. 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 25).

Figure 25. 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 IBM DB2 database.

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Resources

• 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

• Lotus Traveler Detailed System Requirements:

https://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27007909

• Lotus Traveler Support FAQ:

http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21450615

• Traveler Companion FAQ:

http://www.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/dx/Traveler_Companion_FAQ

• Lotus Notes Traveler Support Community:

http://w3.ibm.com/connections/communities/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=6cdeca04-36b9-441b-a27a-a82c1eb05a4a

• Lotus Traveler Releases by Date:

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.