Best practices for fault-tolerant BMC Client Management server cluster deployment

A fault-tolerant (high-availability (HA)) deployment safeguards you against any unplanned downtime of a member node. If one member node of the cluster goes down, the connection is automatically diverted to the other available nodes. This topic walks you through some best practices for such fault-tolerant BMC Client Management server cluster deployment.

• Architecture
• Prerequisites
• Setting up the cluster
• Examples

Architecture

The basic concept of a BMC Client Management fault-tolerant cluster deployment is to have the service run on individual member nodes and use a common master file directory from a shared location. The following diagram provides a high-level view of the architecture:

Prerequisites

When deploying this cluster architecture, ensure the following:

• Minimum two servers as member nodes for the cluster with individual static IP address.
• Only one master directory on a shared location, which must be accessible to each member node in the cluster.

• A cluster management system to ensure that only one member node has the service running at any given time.

  • • For Windows: See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731844(v=ws.10).aspx.
    • For Linux: Different distributions have different high-availability (HA) suites in their repositories. See the corresponding documentation or consult technical support for the distribution.

  Note

  You can manage the cluster by starting and stopping the service on each member node manually. However, it is not recommended for production environment.

• All the member nodes have Java installed as per software requirement. It is recommended that all the member nodes have the same Java version.

Setting up the cluster

1. Install the database client on each node.
   For more information, see corresponding database client documentation.
2. On the currently active node, install BMC Client Management master server.
   For more information, see Installing-on-site.
3. On the other cluster nodes, create BMC Client Management agent service.
   For more information, see Installing-on-site.
4. In the \BMC Software\Client management\Client\config\mtxagent.ini file, set the StaticIPAddress parameter to include the IP address created by your cluster management system.
   For more information, see the relevant cluster management system documentation or contact their technical support.
5. In the \BMC Software\Client management\Client\config\identity.ini file, in the [identity] section,  add the hostname parameter and the cluster name as the value.
   This name is displayed in the console all the time and not the name of the currently active cluster node.

6. Provide the IP address of the cluster to BMC Technical Support to generate appropriate license file. 

   Notes

   • The IP address must be of the cluster and not of a member node.
   • The license must not include a MAC address.
7. When rolling out agents, set the TrustedAddress parameter in the FileStore module configuration to include IP address of the each member node of the cluster and the cluster itself.
8. To create the BMC Client Management service on other member nodes:
   

   • For Windows cluster, use the SC command. For example:

     sc create "BMC Client Management Agent" binPath= "f:\Program Files\BMC Software\Client Management\Master\bin\mtxagent.exe" DisplayName= "BMC Client Management Agent"
   • For Linux cluster, copy the /etc/init.d/BMCClientManagementAgent file to each node.

Examples

Windows cluster

Deployment

• 2 Windows master servers
• 1 MSSQL (High availability of MSSQL is not in the scope of this topic)

Setup

1. Set up two Internet Small Computer System Interface (ISCSI) – one for quorum and one for application.
2. Follow the guidelines on setting up failover cluster available at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731844(v=ws.10).aspx.
3. Install BMC Client Management master server on application ISCSI volume from the currently active node.

4. Create service on both nodes by running the following command:

   sc create "BMC Client Management Agent" binPath= "f:\Program Files\BMC Software\Client Management\Master\bin\mtxagent.exe" DisplayName= "BMC Client Management Agent"
5. Use the cluster manager to configure the BMC Client Management service as a failover service (get DNS name and IP address; DNS entry is automatically created).

Linux cluster

Deployment

• 2 CentOS systems as master servers
• 1 PostgreSQL server

Setup

1. Set up Linux high-availability cluster with a shared storage volume accessible to all cluster nodes.
2. Install BMC Client Management master server to shared volume.
3. Copy /etc/init.d/BMCClientManagementAgent script to all member nodes of the cluster.
4. Configure high availability environment at OS level to start or stop service on the currently active cluster node.