WebSphere Extended Deployment, Version 6.0.x
             Operating Systems: Linux, Windows


Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator integration

Tivoli® Intelligent Orchestrator is the IBM® standard tool for provisioning. With Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator, a WebSphere® Extended Deployment topology can obtain more physical computing resources from outside a node group.

Depending on your environment, adding a server to an application server cluster that is managed by Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator might involve installing and un-installing WebSphere Extended Deployment. Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator can automatically install WebSphere Extended Deployment on servers and configure server network connectivity.

When demand distribution within a WebSphere Extended Deployment enterprise shifts between node groups, the ability to compensate extends beyond the boundaries of the autonomic managers in WebSphere Extended Deployment. When you integrate with Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator, the size of the WebSphere Extended Deployment node groups can be automatically extended based on fluctuating demand. You can share servers among multiple application environments with multiple WebSphere Application Server cells or environments that are not using WebSphere software.

Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator monitors and manages a set of different resource pools, for example, WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ Series, service access point (SAP), and e-mail. Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator ensures that the processing power of these resource pools in the form of machines, logical partitions (LPARs), processors, and so on, is allocated in accordance with business goals. With the WebSphere Extended Deployment provisioning engine, Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator receives information that it can use to compute allocations of available resources within the scope of a WebSphere Extended Deployment topology. Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator allocates physical resources among the candidate node groups.

The autonomic provisioning for WebSphere Extended Deployment can be done on two levels: autonomic decisions based on central processing unit (CPU) objectives, and autonomic decisions based on end-to-end performance goals. Autonomic provisioning of servers to node groups can be performed based on CPU objectives that are defined in the form of the fitness function used by the standard Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator application controller. The CPU objectives are defined for each Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator and WebSphere Application Server cluster. To enable autonomic provisioning based on end-to-end performance goals, WebSphere Extended Deployment implements an objective analyzer that is specialized for WebSphere Extended Deployment.

Provisioning dynamic clusters

WebSphere Extended Deployment manages resources through autonomic managers to meet system goals. The autonomic managers can reorder client requests, modify the behavior of running applications on WebSphere Application Server, and deploy additional cluster instances for an application. Various possible provisioning steps are associated with managing dynamic clusters in WebSphere Extended Deployment. See Dynamic application placement for information on provisioning in WebSphere Extended Deployment.

The key function that is delivered by Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator to WebSphere Extended Deployment is to add or remove servers from the working set that is used by WebSphere Extended Deployment. Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator has the knowledge of server-free pools, application-wide service-level agreements, and cross-business information necessary for deciding when to change the number of servers allocated to WebSphere Extended Deployment. Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator leverages this knowledge to determine the best allocation of servers across the entire data center.

When to use Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator with WebSphere Extended Deployment

With WebSphere Extended Deployment Version 6 and later, you can handle shared resources without Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator by using overlapping node groups. Because nodes can be members of multiple node groups, the performance of applications in several node groups in a shared set of nodes can be optimized directly. Use overlapping node groups instead of using Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator to move nodes between node groups to get the best performance from your WebSphere Extended Deployment installation.

Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator can be useful in other more complex situations:
  • When sharing resources between a WebSphere Extended Deployment Version 6.0 system and other data center systems, for example, WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, DB2®, and so on. By using drivers and objective analyzers, Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator can determine the relative performance between all of the systems and move resources between the different systems in response to changing workloads.
  • When two different applications that are installed on two different dynamic clusters backed by different node groups require different access to resources in the data center. For example, one group of applications requires access to a particular Storage Area Network (SAN), and another group does not require access to the SAN. In this case, you can customize your installation and work flows so that when Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator moves nodes into and out of the two node groups, access to the resources is modified appropriately. Then, you can use Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator to balance performance between the two node groups.

Relationship between WebSphere Extended Deployment and Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator objects and concepts

Figure 1. High level relationships among WebSphere Extended Deployment and Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator objects and conceptsHigh level relationships among WebSphere Extended Deployment and Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator objects and concepts
The preceding graphic shows high-level relationships among WebSphere Extended Deployment and Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator objects and concepts. The following information is revealed:
  • A WebSphere Extended Deployment cell is defined in Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator as a Management Server Cluster Domain. The management server is the deployment manager.
  • Each application tier contains a set of servers. The servers are dedicated or are mapped to a Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator resource pool. Each application tier is linked to one cluster domain only through the parent cluster property of the application tier.
  • A WebSphere Extended Deployment cell cluster domain can have multiple application tiers.
  • Each application tier also has a Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator property to map to a node group name. The servers in the application tier can belong to the mapped node group.
  • One application tier can map to one or more node groups. Different application tiers can also map to the same node group.



Subtopics
WebSphere Extended Deployment objective analyzer
Related tasks
Configuring Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator to work with WebSphere Extended Deployment
Concept topic    

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Last updated: Nov 30, 2007 3:59:37 PM EST
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