Clustering IBM® Mobile Portal Accelerator(MPA) 8.0

 

IBM India Software Labs, Bangalore

October, 2012

 

This article is titled as Clustering IBM® Mobile Portal Accelerator ® (hereafter referred to as MPA). It demonstrates the comprehensive step-by-step description to build Vertical/Horizontal cluster for the MPA 8.0 on AIX with DB2 as the database on an existing Portal cluster. It’s targeted for testers and customers who are interested in building scalable/High availability solutions on MPA. It is presumed that the reader of the article has a basic understanding of the IBM® WebSphere Portal ® and WebSphere Portal Clustering.

 

Introduction

            IBM Mobile Portal Accelerator (formerly IBM WebSphere Everyplace Mobile Portal Enable) software is increasingly becoming the key component in many industries like telecommunications, banking, finance, insurance and retail. It extends the capabilities of the IBM WebSphere Portal product to an almost limitless range of mobile devices. It provides Web contents, services and applications to mobile devices while maintaining the benefits and advantages of a portal Web site. These benefits include:

• On-screen application integration
• Single sign-on
• Separation of logic, layout, and branding
• Administration using a powerful and easy to use graphical user interface

 

            Clustering technique enables you to create multiple clones of the application server running identical instance of enterprise applications .These enterprise applications can serve the client request concurrently by running on same (Vertical clustering) or different physical machine’s (Horizontal clustering) to provide following benefits.

 

• Workload Management. The client requests can be routed automatically to different cluster members (clones) in the cluster .Hence managing the workload efficiently using clustering.
• Scalability and Performance. Additional cluster members (clones) can be added/removed from the cluster based on the number incoming client requests.
• Reliability and Failover. Cluster members (clones) can be used for planned / unplanned downtime of the application. Incase of failure of any cluster member, still the client request can be routed to other active clones and thus minimizing the risk of failovers.

 

            Clustering can be classified into two major categories based on number of   clones/cluster members created on the same or different physical machine. The concept of creating multiple clones/members on same machine is called vertical clustering. Though vertical clustering helps to efficiently utilize the machines processing power but it provides only certain level of failures. Creating multiple clones/members on different physical machines is called horizontal clustering and it provides highest level of scalability and failover.

Pre-requisites

MPA is an extension of WebSphere Portal and it is assumed that, the reader already has a working portal cluster

 

Variable names used in the document

 

This section lists the variable names and their associated directory paths

was_root - /usr/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer (default path used while installation)

wp_profile_root - /usr/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile (default path used while installation)

wp_root - /usr/IBM/WebSphere/PortalServer (default path used while installation)

db_root - Value specified for the home directory selected during DB2 installation.

db2instance - DB2® instance user.

 

 

Installing MPA on Clustered Environment

 

This section of the article covers setting up the environment for MPA cluster by using existing WebSphere Portal cluster as mentioned above in pre-requisites. It covers the steps for preparing WebSphere Portal for Server (MCS), Preparing DB2 for MCS, Installing MCS application and finally installing the Mobile Portal Accelerator.

 

Check in below link for the supported platform, OS, Portal version, DB2 level

 

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27036271

 

Preparing the WebSphere Portal for MCS

 

Before you begin installing MPA cluster on existing WebSphere Portal Server cluster, make sure its up and running with no errors/issues.

 

In order to ensure you have WebSphere Portal running with no errors/exceptions, open the WebSphere Portal Admin page using the browser and login as the Portal admin user and view pages and look into following logs to confirm same.

•    <wp_profile_root
   
  /logs/WebSphere_Portal/SystemOut.log
•    <wp_profile_root
   
  /logs/WebSphere_Portal/SystemErr.log

 

Creating the MPA install image

Unpack the file wp.mobile.zip which is used to create Multi-Channel Server (MCS) and Mobile Portal Accelerator install images on your WebSphere Portal server. Use an archive utility to unzip wp.mobile.zip to the /tmp directory. Install MCS and Mobile Portal Accelerator images as a ConfigEngine assembly using the following command:

 

./ConfigEngine.sh -install -assemblyIudd sdd.xml -assemblyRoot /tmp/wp.mobile -installLocation /IBM/WebSphere -offeringName PortalServer

 

Preparing the DB2 database for MCS

 

MCS requires a separate and distinct database other than the existing databases for WebSphere Portal. The database can reside on the same machine where the cluster node is created or it can reside on a remote machine. Perform the following steps to create and configure the db

 

1. Log in to database machine as the DB2 instance user. If you are logged in as root, run the following command to change to the DB2 instance user:

            su - db2instance_userID

2. Run the db2start command to ensure that the DB2 server is started.
3. Create a separate database for MCS, For example “mcs”. 

            db2 create db mcs using codeset UTF-8 territory us

4. Update the mcs database configuration using the following command to increase the db2 transaction logs.

            db2 update db cfg for mcs using logfilsiz 10000 logprimary 10 logsecond 10

5. Connect to the mcs database using the following command.

            db2 connect to mcs user db2instance_userID using db2instance_password

6. If your database server is on the same server as WebSphere Portal, change the working directory to /repository/db2 Otherwise, copy the file /wp.mobile/wp.mobile.mcs/repository/db2/create_vm_tables.sql and create_mdpr_tables.sql from WebSphere Portal server to a directory on database server. Then, make that directory as your working directory.
7. Run the following command to create the database tables:

            db2 -tf create_vm_tables.sql

  db2 -tf create_mdpr_tables.sql

 

Installing MCS

 

Perform the following steps to install MCS on WebSphere Portal server.

 

1. Ensure that the database server and the database listener are running.

 

2. If you are using a remote database server and the DB2 client software is not installed on the WebSphere Portal server, copy the following files from your database server to a directory on the WebSphere Portal server:

          db_root/ db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc.jar (for DB2 version 9.1 (with fix pack 5) or 9.5  (with fix pack 3))

         db_root/ db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc4.jar (for DB2 version 9.7 )

         db_root/ db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc_license_cu.jar

        Note: Later in this procedure, you will add these files to the CLASSPATH environment variable and to the JDBC_DRIVER parameter in the ImportPolicies.sh shell script.

 

3. Add DB2 JDBC driver to the classpath of the WebSphere Portal server using below steps:
   1. Log in to the WebSphere Application Server Administrative Console
   2. Click Servers > Application Servers.
   3. Click the WebSphere_Portal server link.
   4. Click Server Infrastructure > Process Definition.
   5. Click the Java Virtual Machine link.
   6. In the Classpath field, add following entries

      Example entries follow.

       db_root/ db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc.jar (for DB2 version 9.1 (with fix pack 5) or 9.5 (with fix pack 3))

      db_root/ db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc4.jar (for DB2 version 9.7 )

      db_root/ db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc_license_cu.jar

7. Click “Apply” and Save the configuration changes.

       Follow the same step for all the WebSphere Portal servers in the portal cluster.

 

4. Run the below command to ensure that WebSphere Application server environment variables are set from \bin

        .   setupCmdLine.sh

       Note: There is a space between the period (.) and the rest of the command.

 

5. Change your working directory to /ConfigEngine and run the following command.

./ConfigEngine.sh init mcs-deploy-mcs -DMcsRepositoryType=odbc -DMcsDbVendor=db_vendor -DMcsDbHost=hostname -DMcsDbPort=port_number -DMcsDbSource=db_name -DMcsDbUser=db2instance -DMcsDbPassword=db2instance_password -DMcsProject=mobile-portal

 

• db_vendor: “db2-type4” for DB2
• hostname: the fully qualified host name of the database server.
• port_number: the port number used by the JDBC applet ("net") driver on the database server for the MCS database. Use “50000” unless another application (including another database instance) is already using that port.
•  db_name: the name of the Multi-Channel Server database
• db2instance: the user ID of the DB2 instance user.
• db2instance_password: the DB2 instance password for the MCS database
• mobile-portal must be the project name for installing MCS which will be “mobile-portal”

      Note: Make sure CLASSPATH environment variables contain the DB2 specific jars i.e.              db_root/db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc.jar (for DB2 version 9.1 fix pack5) or 9.5fix                pack3)

       db_root/ db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc4.jar (for DB2 version 9.7)

            db_root/ db2instance /sqllib/java/db2jcc_license_cu.jar

                             

6. Edit the repository batch files in a text editor.

1. Go to wp_root/wp.mobile/wp.mobile.mcs/repository/bin
2. After installation of MCS, modify the drManager tool with the appropriate database-related information.
3. Add the JBDC class path to the drManager batch file or shell script.

    Note: For DB2 version 9.7 Fix Pack 3, jdbc driver is db2jcc4.jar.

	For example, in the drManager.sh file:

	--jdbc-driver-path /usr/IBM/dbdriver/db2jcc4.jar

For DB2 version 9.1 (with fix pack 5) Fix Pack 10, 9.5 (with fix pack 3) Fix Pack 7 the jdbc driver is db2jcc.jar.

4. Add the JDBC driver class path to the ImportPolicies script to add JDBC driver class path

For ImportPolicies.sh, use:

     JDBC_DRIVER=

      For drManager.sh use:

     jdbc-driver-path

5. Add the JDBC driver class path to the mcsImport script.

      For example:

   JDBC_DRIVER=/opt/IBM/dbdrivers/db2jcc4.jar

7. To import default device policies, run the following command:

      ./ConfigEngine.sh init mcs-import-devices -DMcsProject=mobile-portal

                       

8. In case of Horizontal cluster, run the below command on all secondary nodes after running the setupCmdLine.sh and setting the CLASSPATH.

      ./ConfigEngine.sh init mcs-config-cluster-secondary-node -DMcsRepositoryType=odbc -DMcsDbVendor=db_vendor -DMcsDbHost=hostname -DMcsDbPort=port_number -DMcsDbSource=db_name -DMcsDbUser=db2instance -DmcsDbPassword=db2instance_password -DMcsProject=mobile-portal

      Note: Use the same parameter values which are used to in the above step 5

     

9. After the last task completes, edit the ImportPolicies.sh, drManager.sh, mcsImport, file for secondary node as given in above step 6.

      Note: Don’t run the mcs-import-device on secondary node as the MCS data is       already imported to the database in step 7.

 

10. Login to Deployment Manager Admin Console and click Full Resynchronize for both cluster members/nodes.    

                                 

Installing MWP

 

1. If you haven’t already done so with a prior step, please run the following command to ensure that WebSphere Application server environment variables are set from < >

             .   setupCmdLine.sh

 

2. On Primary node, run the following commands from to /ConfigEngine to install the Everyplace Mobile Portal extensions

            ./ConfigEngine.sh mwp-config-cluster-primary-node

 

3. Run this task command from the Primary node, to import XDIME aggregator policies and generic portlet policies.

            ./ConfigEngine.sh mwp-import-policies

 

4. Run this task command from the Primary node to import Mobile portlet policies.

            ./ConfigEngine.sh mwp-import-portlet-policies

 

5. In case of Horizontal cluster, run this command on all Secondary nodes after running the \bin\setupCmdLine.sh and setting the CLASSPATH

            ./ConfigEngine.sh mwp-config-cluster-secondary-node

 

6. In case of Vertical cluster, run this command for all the Secondary cluster node instance’s after running the \bin\setupCmdLine.sh and setting the CLASSPATH

            ./ConfigEngine.sh mwp-config-vertical-cluster-secondary-node

            -DServerName=Secondary_server_names

     

      For example, if vertical cluster has three instances (WP01, WP02 and WP03), run the following commands:
      ./ConfigEngine.sh mwp-config-vertical-cluster-secondary-node -DServerName=WP02

            ./ConfigEngine.sh mwp-config-vertical-cluster-secondary-node -DServerName=WP03

 

            Note: Importing aggregator policies and portlet policies (step 3&4 above) is not required for secondary nodes.

 

7. After Everyplace Mobile Portal is installed on both cluster members of the WebSphere Portal cluster, login to the Administrative Console of Deployment Manager and click full resynchronize on all cluster member/node and restart the portal cluster.

 

8. Configure the Everyplace Mobile Portal extensions for cluster using the below command on Primary node.

            ./ConfigEngine.sh mwp-config-cluster-all

 

9. To activate the mobile portlets, run the below command on Primary node.

            ./ConfigEngine.sh activate-portlets

10. To display images from the web server on the user agent, perform the following steps:

 

• In the Integrated Solutions Console, click Applications > Application Types > WebSphere enterprise applications > MPATheme > Manage modules. A list of mappings is displayed.

• In the Clusters and servers list, select Portal Cluster and the HTTP server (which is added as an unmanaged node). Use the Ctrl key to select multiple targets.
• Click Apply.
• Save the configuration changes.
• Restart the HTTP server.

 

Verifying MPA cluster

 

      Login to mobile portal using a browser and if the user succeeds in viewing Manage mobile page under Administration, as shown in Figure1,the MPA installation has gone fine.

 

Figure 1. Mobile portal administration page in portal

 

 

One can access the same portal url from any mobile, the mobile portal login page should look like below Figure 2:

 

 

Figure 2. Mobile portal login page when portal accessed through mobile or mobile simulator

 

 

Conclusion

 

     This article demonstrates how to build a MPA cluster using Multi Channel Server and Mobile WebSphere Portal components to build High availability and Scalability solution.