Operating Systems: i5/OS
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Replicating data across application servers in a cluster

 

Use this task to configure a data replication domain to transfer data, objects, or events for session manager, dynamic cache, or stateful session beans. Data replication domains use the data replication service (DRS), which is an internal WebSphere Application Server component that performs replication services, including replicating data, objects, and events among application servers. If you configured a data replication domain with a previous version of WebSphere Application Server, you might be using a multi-broker replication domain. Any replication domains that you create with the current version of WebSphere Application Server are data replication domains. Migrate any multi-broker replication domains to data replication domains. To learn the differences between the two types of replication domains, see Comparison of multi-broker versus data replication domains and Migrating servers from multi-broker replication domains to data replication domains.

 

Overview

Use this task to configure replication, a service that transfers data, objects, or events among the application servers in a cluster. Use replication to prevent loss of session data with session manager, to further improve the performance of the dynamic cache service, and to provide failover in stateful session beans. For more information about replication, see Replication.

If you select the Configure HTTP memory-to-memory replication option when you create a cluster, the replication domain is automatically created for you.

 

Procedure

  1. Create a replication domain. Use one of the following methods to create a replication domain:

    For more information about the replication domain settings that you can configure in the administrative console, see Data replication domain settings

  2. Configure the consumers, or the components that use the replication domains. Dynamic cache, session manager, and stateful session beans are the three types of replication domain consumers. Each type of consumer must be configured with a different replication domain. For example, session manager uses one domain and dynamic cache uses a different replication domain. However, use one replication domain if you are configuring HTTP session memory-to-memory replication and stateful session bean replication. Using one replication domain in this case ensures that the backup state information of HTTP sessions and stateful session beans are on the same application servers.

  3. Determine whether your configuration requires additional thread resources.

    The replication service uses threads obtained from the Default thread pool for various tasks, including processing messages. Other application server components also use this thread pool. Therefore, during application server startup the default maximum thread pool size of 20 might not be sufficient to allow the replication service to obtain enough threads from the pool to process all of the incoming replication messages. The number of incoming messages is influenced by the number of application servers in the domain and the number of replication domain consumers on each application server. The number of messages to be processed increases as the number of application servers in the domain increases and/or the number of replication consumers increases.

    Persistent data not being replicated to the application servers during server startup might be an indication that you need to increase the setting for the maximum thread pool size. In larger configurations, doubling the maximum size of the Default thread pool to 40 is usually sufficient. However, if the number of application servers in a replication domain is greater ten and the number of replication domain consumers in each application server is greater than two, it might have to set the maximum thread pool size to a value greater than 40. See Thread pool settings for a description of how to change the maximum thread pool size setting.

 

Results

Data is replicating among the application servers in a configured replication domain.

 

What to do next

If you select DES or 3DES as the encryption type for a replication domain, an encryption key is used for the encryption of messages. At regular intervals, for example once a month, you should go to the Environment > Replication domains page in the administrative console, and click Regenerate encryption key to regenerate the key. After the key is regenerated, you must restart all of the application servers that are configured as part of the replication domain. Periodically regenerating the key improves data security.


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Replication

Replication domain collection

Migrating servers from multi-broker replication domains to data replication domains

Replicating data with a multi-broker replication domain

 

Related tasks


Configuring a core group for replication