High availability deployment for production

Consider these best practices when planning for high availability (HA) in your deployment.

High availability overview

The application employs a standard three-tier architecture: client, application server, and database. Clients include smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.

To achieve HA, you can use multiple servers for each server and database component, and employ load balancers where needed. For the BMC Helix Digital Workplace server, the server grouping is a cluster. For the Action Request System (AR System) server with BMC Helix ITSM, the server grouping is a server group. 

The following diagram illustrates the communication between components in a typical production deployment for BMC Helix Digital Workplace Basic. This diagram does not include BMC Helix Virtual Agent, Live Chat or BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog because these products are included with BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced. To simplify the diagram, BMC Helix Single Sign-On (BMC Helix SSO) is not included. 

Deployment architecture diagram

BMC Helix Digital Workplace integrates with other systems by using a variety of providers. The application can expose aspects of other IT applications through the UI, or it can use other applications to aid or enhance core BMC Helix Digital Workplace functionality. For example, BMC Helix Digital Workplace integrates with modules in BMC Helix ITSM to submit service requests and to search for knowledge articles. Providers handle integrations with BMC Helix Digital Workplace.

The following diagram includes all components for BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced. To simplify the diagram, BMC Helix SSO is not included. 

Deployment architecture diagram

Clusters and server groups

For HA and performance, each server type should be set up as a cluster behind a load balancer. For AR System servers, these clusters are called server groups.

BMC Helix Single Sign-On

The following diagram provides an overview of the BMC Helix SSO architecture. 

In this diagram, BMC Helix Digital Workplace refers to both BMC Helix Digital Workplace and BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog servers.

Orientation

Communication to external networks

Communication to an external network is required for the following capabilities:

• Notification to mobile clients—Google cloud messaging provides notifications to Google Android devices. Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) provides notifications to Apple iOS devices.
• Location awareness—Google Maps APIs provide the geographic maps displayed on all clients.

If you do not use these capabilities, your deployment can remain fully within your internal network. For details about ports used for communication, see Required ports. 

BMC Helix Digital Workplace mobile applications

BMC Helix Digital Workplace uses a responsive UI based on the Progressive Web App that supports all clients—from desktop to mobile devices. The Progressive Web App replaces the native apps to simplify the mobile apps distribution. All features and customization are available on compatible desktop and mobile devices. 

If required, for Apple iOS devices, you can use the standard app that BMC provides, or you can distribute the mobile client. For more information on the deployment options, see Deploying clients.