You can enable cross-cell communication when an Intelligent Management cell contains servers
that are enabled with an on demand router (ODR) that routes to other WebSphere® Application
Server administrative cells.
Before you begin
Configure the cells that need to communicate with each other
and create the on demand router.
About this task
Best practice: Use this method of configuring
cross-cell communication only if the bulletin board service overly
network (BBSON) has been explicitly disabled. Otherwise use the procedure
described in Configuring multi-cell performance management.
bprac
When the ODR needs to route work to servers that are
in different cells, you can configure cross-cell communication by
creating a core group bridge.
You must use the crossCellCGBCfg command
to configure Intelligent Management cells
to communicate. Do not create a core group bridge in the administrative
console.
The
crossCellCGBCfg command performs
the following configuration actions:
- Enables the core group bridge service between the cell that is
running the ODR and another WebSphere Application
Server administrative cell.
- Configures core group bridges on all of the node agents in both
cells.
- Enables the Intelligent Management overlay
communication function between the cells.
Running the
crossCellCGBCfg does not remove
any existing core group bridge configurations. After you run the script,
you can update the core group bridge configuration for your environment.
Procedure
- Start the node agents and deployment managers that you
want to participate in cross-cell communication.
- Verify that the XD-CGB-EXPORT file is created for each
cell. The XD-CGB-EXPORT file is in the app_server_root/profiles/deployment_manager_profile_name/config/cells/cell_name directory.
If you are using a firewall, verify that the firewall is open for
the ports that are listed in the XD-CGB-EXPORT file to support communication.
- Verify that the overlaynodes.config file
is created for each cell. The overlaynodes.config file
is in theapp_server_root/profiles/deployment_manager_profile_name/config/cells/cell_name directory.
If you are using a firewall, verify that the firewall is open for
the ports that are listed in the overlaynodes.config file
to support communication.
- Enable communication. For more information, read about
enabling communication between cells that have security enabled.
If the cells at you are using for cross-cell communication
have some form of security enabled, such as Lightweight Directory
Access Protocol (LDAP) administration security, set up communication
between the cells.
- Run the crossCellCGBCfg command in each
cell.
- From a command prompt, type the following command against
the ODR deployment manager process for each back-end cell to which
the ODR cell routes:
crossCellCGBCfg create deployment_manager_host deployment_manager_SOAP_port path_to_external_cell_XD-CGB-EXPORT path_to_external_cell_overlaynodes.config_file
When security is enabled for the crossCellCGBCfg command,
include the user ID and password as additional parameters: crossCellCGBCfg
create deployment_manager_host deployment_manager_SOAP_port path_to_external_cell_XD-CGB-EXPORT path_to_external_cell_overlaynodes.config_file user_name password
This command identifies to the ODR the external cell
that is represented by the XD-CGB-EXPORT and overlaynodes.config files.
The XD-CGB-EXPORT file is a subset of the serverindex.xml file
that isolates the required endpoints for cross-cell high availability
manager communication in a runtime environment. If you examine the
contents of the serverindex.xml file directly
or by way of the endpoint manager for a node agent in the administrative
console, the endpoint that is used by the cross cell function is P2P_CGBS_UNICAST_ADDRESS.
Any firewall that is employed between the ODR cell and the back-end
cell needs to allow the traffic to flow through the ports that are
represented by this endpoint on each node in the ODR and back-end
cells.
- Run the crossCellCGBCfg command on
each back-end cell, against the deployment manager process of that
cell, to import the XD-CGB-EXPORT and overlaynodes.config files of
the ODR cell. Importing the files between two back-end cells is not
supported.
- Stop all of the processes in each cell.
- Restart each cell.
Results
The on demand router routes work to servers that are in different
cells.
Example
Figure 1. Cross-cell communication topology diagram.
This topology shows the logical division between two cells where
each cell is running several servers. Each node agent runs a peer
access point bridge between the cells, making the bridges part of
a peer access point group.
What to do next
To clear previous imports and start over, run the following
command:
crossCellCGBCfg clear deployment_manager_host deployment_manager_SOAP_port
Or,
if you want the cross cell communication to use Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL), set the CGBS_USE_SSL system property to a non-null value on
each server in the ODR and backend cells.