We are a rather new client to Sonic, and have set it up in environments where we have it running on multiple servers. I want to cluster these servers (which have matching configurations) so that they evenly share the load of the environment and failover to one another if needed (hence the point of clustering). But the only documentation I find is about clustering brokers on the same server. Does anyone know of more documentation about clustering across a multi-server environment (if not, do you have a quick overview of how to do it)? Servers are Windows 2008 64-bit R2. Thanks.
See 'Chapter 2 Distributing Components' and 'Chapter 3 - Clustered Brokers' in the SonicMQ Deployment Guide. Where in the documentation does it imply that clustered brokers must reside on the same node? In this same guide you may want to look at the 'Achieving Continuous Availability' for failover options.
Thank you Ronald. You'll have to excuse me as I'm new to Sonic administration, so I'm unfortunately having to learn on my own as I go. I see that it doesn't require the clustered brokers to be on the same machine (node), but they do need to run in the same domain. The issue is that when I do the Sonic installations, they implement their own domain on the node. For example I install on Server A with Domain1, and install on Server B with another Domain1. Is there documentation on setting up a Domain between multiple machines (nodes)? Will I have to re-do the installations on my separate servers? Sorry for this once again, I'm just new to this and I see documentation detailing that it can work, but not on how to make it work from the installation and tools. Thanks.
What version of Sonic are you using?
8.5
The general recommendation is that you separate your messaging traffic/broker(s) from your management traffic/broker(s). So to install a Domain Manager and a 2 broker messaging cluster the sequence would be something like this:
1) Install the Domain Manager. I believe that is what you are currently doing.
2) Start the Domain Manager.
2) Install a Sonic Container Launcher (see Chapters 3 & 4 in the Installation guide), either on the same node as the Domain Manager or on a different node. Choose the option to configure a container during install, this container will be used to host the 1st messaging broker in the cluster.
3) Install a Sonic Container Launcher on a different node. Choose the option to configure a container during install, this container will be used to host the 2nd messaging broker in the cluster.
4) Start Sonic Management Console and connect to the DM. Create the 1st and 2nd brokers, add each as a component to one of the containers created as part of the Launcher installs.
5) Create a cluster, add the brokers to the cluster.
6) Launch the two messaging brokers containers.
There is also a model driven deployment tool (Sonic Deployment Manager) that automates this process, but if the process described above should be sufficient if you are just trying to get familiar with some of the Sonic deployment concepts.
Ronald, thank you. Before I give this a try in our test environment, I have a couple quick questions. The way it works is both our test environment and production environment have two nodes each that we want to share the load of transmissions between; would it be better to set up clustered brokers or set up dynamic routing (I have seen both mentioned in documentation)? Also, if you recommend clustering, you mentioned only installing the Domain Manager on one machine; if that is the case what happens if that machine becomes overloaded or goes down? How can the other machine pick up the work if it's not the Domain Manager? Thanks.
You want to use clustering - DRA is geared more toward distributed and/or sometimes disconnected deployments.
Management containers have local caches and are not necessarily reliant on the Domain Manager being available. However if this is a concern you could set up a fault tolerant Domain Manager configuration in addition to the messaging broker cluster. See 'Chapter 13 Fault Tolerant Management Services" in the SonicMQ Deployment Guide.
Thanks for the help Ronald, I will give it a try and let you know how it goes. It may be next week before I can try though as I was just pulled on to another task. Thanks.
I don't know if you have a license for Sonic SDM, but it's quite easy to do exactly what you are asking with it. There are working samples that describe how to install primary/backup/clustered brokers on the same or multiple machines. That's how we do it where I work.
Thanks for the help everyone, I'm currently setting up backups for my management components, and when creating a backup for the DS for the host directory the instructions say to specify the installation directory on the remote (backup) system. I'm in a Windows environment, so does that mean replace the "." with \\<>\<>\<>? If so,what Windows account needs access to this share (is it the one that the primary system's Sonic Windows Service is running under)? Thanks.
Thanks to everyone for their help and advise on this. It has helped me get up and running.