Deploy stand-alone mux servers
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Why are we deploying stand-alone mux servers? What does a stand-alone mux
server really buy us? It buys us scalability. Each mux server can comfortably
handle 40,000 to 60,000 TCP connections. By deploying a stand-alone mux
server, we are essentially moving the overheard of handling the connections
from the Sametime server to the mux server in order to free up resources
on the
Sametime server to more effectively handle its other functions. Mux servers
allow
us to scale our environment without necessarily having to increase the
number of
Sametime servers.
In this section we discuss the step-by-step deployment of two stand-alone
mux
servers for ITSO Corporation’s environment.
Install stand-alone mux server
To install a stand-alone mux server on Windows:
1. Run the Community mux setup program (setupwin32.exe) located within
the
Sametime components CD or download package from Passport Advantage®.
2. Select the language and click
OK.
3. On the welcome screen, click
Next.
4. Review and accept the license agreement and click
Next.
5. Choose the installation directory (that is, C:\Lotus\SametimeMux) and
click
Next.
6. On the next screen, enter a fully qualified host name for one of the
chat
servers (that is, chat1.cam.itso.ibm.com) (Figure 4-62). We recommend not
entering an IP address for administrative purposes.
7. On the summary screen, click the
Install button.
8. Once completed, click
Finish to complete the installation.
Configure stand-alone mux server
After the mux server has been installed, we need to configure it so that
it:
Can handle the appropriate load
Can handle failover if the primary sametime server is down
To configure:
1. Using your favorite text editor, open up sametime.ini (by default, located
at
c:\Lotus\SametimeMux\sametime.ini).
2. Update the following fields:
– VPMX_CAPACITY=80000
This increases the max capacity of the stand-alone mux to 80,000 TCP
connections. While a mux can comfortably handle 40,000 to 60,000
connections, it is important to allow each stand-alone mux to handle
potential influx of connections if a mux server faults.
For example, let us suppose that there are two mux servers, where mux1
has 20,000 connections and mux2 has 30,000 connections. Because of
some hardware-related problem, mux2 goes down. Mux1 needs to be able
to handle the influx of 30,000 connections. This is why the capacity on
a
mux is set higher than the normal expected capacity, so that it can handle
the influx of TCP connections from mux servers that may potentially go
down.
– VPS_HOST=chat1.cam.itso.ibm.com, chat2.cam.itso.ibm.com
During the install, we provided the host name of the Sametime server that
the mux will connect to. This VPS_HOST parameter defines the Sametime
server from which the mux server will retrieve the community-specific
information it needs to forward packets. However, we need to provide
failover redundancy in the event the Sametime server that the mux points
to is down. If mux could only connect to one server and that server was
down, it would render the mux useless. This is why we need to allow the
mux server to connect to another server if the primary server is down.
By
adding a second server to VPS_HOST, the mux can connect to chat2 if
chat1 is down in order to retrieve community specific information.
3. Set the startup type for the ST mux service to automatic.
a. Click
Start →
Run and enter the following:
services.msc
b. Right-click
ST Mux and select
Properties.
c. Change startup type to automatic.
d. Click
Apply and then
OK.
4. Make sure that the Sametime servers are running.
5. Reboot the operating system.