Business Objects XI-R2 CMS Server Clustering

Business Objects XI-R2 CMS Server Clustering

What is CMS Cluster:                                                           

A “CMS Cluster” is a group of Business Objects Central Management Servers (abbreviated CMS, which is a BO service) that are interrelated and connected so that they may work in conjunction to manage the various other BO servers and provide most of the basic functionality of Business Objects.
There will be multiple server running at the back end which will be identical and configured in a single place to make it behave like a single server

Business need for CMS Clustering:

Business Intelligence has reached a new level of importance for decision makers. The number of BI users constantly increasing to access their dashboards and reports has thrown a challenge for BI Architects to make BI Systems highly available and reliable. Traditional Architecture which relies on silos of hardware and software resources makes it impossible to route the excess compute power where ever the current demand is greatest.

Business benefit: Post CMS Clustering:

Clustered Architecture resolves the dilemma by rationalizing hardware and software to fully leverage existing processing power. With Clustering there is dynamic provisioning and pooling of resources, which results in higher efficiency as well as availability, scalability and high performance.

 High availability: 

A cluster consists of two or more CMS servers working together against a common CMS system database. If a machine that is running one CMS fails, a machine with another CMS will continue to service Business Objects Enterprise requests. This "high availability" support helps to ensure that Business Objects Enterprise users can still access information when there is an equipment failure.

Improved resource utilization:

By adding a new CMS to the cluster we can instruct the new CMS to connect to the existing CMS system database and to share the processing workload with any existing CMS machines. This

capability of sharing the workload results in processing of more requests as well as optimal utilization of resources.

Scalability:

In addition to high availability, many organizations today are motivated by their increasing need for high performance and scalability, largely because of a greater interest and business demand for mission critical Business Intelligence applications. Clustering gives organizations the ability to start small and expand their infrastructure on an as-needed basis. Companies today do not have the luxury of being able to bring down

the Systems for infrastructure expansion or for periodic updates and maintenance. With clustered architecture you can dynamically add more nodes, more CPUs and more system resources on the fly without shutting down the Systems.

Load is equally balanced

Manageability:

All the Services can be monitored and managed from Central Management Console. This reduces the efforts required to monitor servers by accessing each and every system.

Advantages of Serer clustering: 

Case 1:

Assume there is only 1 server and job server is configured to run 10 jobs at a time

we can pretty much increase from 10 to 50  but every job will be running from 1 tomcat server

Not effective

Case 2:

Again we have only 1 server and 5 job server and each server is configured to run 10 jobs at a time which is summing to 50 as above

still all job server uses only 1 tomcat server

Job server 2 will not get initiated unless we run 11 simultaneous job

Job server 3 will not get initiated unless we run 21 simultaneous job .........

Issue remains same in Case 1 and Case 2

Case 3:

Have the server clustered with 2 more VM's / server, so now we have main server, VM1 and VM2

and each box will have its own tomcat and its own job server

And through the load balancer the CMS will automatically run the report through a job server which have less load compared to other 2

if 1st report runs from job server 1 then second report will no run from job server 1, and it will be either job server 2 or 3

there by 

"It reduces the system downtime but Maintainance should be taken care"

"Cannot get both the side of a coin in a single toss"

Installation of Business Objects Software on second (clustering) server:

1.) Start Installation by selecting ‘Perform Server Installation’, click Next

2.) Enter ‘Product Registration Code’ and click Next

3.) Select the location of Business Objects, and click Next

4.) Setting up the Clustered Environment, Select 'Expand'

5.) Type the existing CMS name ex : server1_cms (first server)

6.) Check the services which you want to be clustered

7.) Uncheck "File Repository Server".

Note:

Uncheck "File repository server" as each BO Environment will have one location to get the reports and post
the reports.

8.) Check "Enable server upon install" option.

9.) Specify CMS Database information (Database credentials should be same as of first server)

10.) Select the Web Component Adapter, Click Next

11.) Click Next to start Installation...

12.) Leave the administrator Credentials empty and click finish to end the installation .

Validation:

1.) Right click on the Central management server from CCM and clcik on properties. Under the
configurations tab the CMC Datasource should point to the same cluster on both servers.

2.) For all the other servers on the second server CMS name should be pointed to the first server.

This process completes the implementation CMS Clustering.

Conclusion:
CMS Clustering is a proven and trusted solution for Mission-critical Business Objects platforms.This
flexible architecture provides fail-over capability and enhanced parallel processing to the BO platform. Ultimately
this results in making the platform ‘Bullet-proof’.