Planning BMC Remedy Smart Reporting deployment

You can deploy BMC Remedy Reporting in the following ways:

Best practice

It is recommended that you install BMC Remedy Smart Reporting on a separate server for better performance.
Though you can deploy BMC Remedy Smart Reporting in different ways, BMC recommends you to deploy BMC Remedy Smart Reporting in an environment where data is fetched from replicated AR database.
- For 9.1.00 Service Pack 2 or later, use the read-only replicated AR database.
- For releases older than 9.1.00 Service Pack 2, you must apply the hotfix to use the replicated AR database. Contact BMC Support to obtain the hotfix.

Deploying in a standalone environment where data is fetched from the AR production database

When you have a standalone deployment of BMC Remedy Smart Reporting that fetches data from the AR production database:

BMC Remedy Smart Reporting is deployed on a separate tomcat cluster.
BMC Remedy Smart Reporting uses a database which is different from AR database.

The following diagram illustrates the deployment model.

BMC Remedy Smart Reporting uses Smart Reporting database for its own data and metadata.

Deploying in a standalone environment where data is fetched from the replicated AR database

When you deploy BMC Remedy Smart Reporting that fetches data from the replicated AR database:

BMC Remedy Smart Reporting is deployed on a separate tomcat cluster.
BMC Remedy AR System production database is replicated and used for reporting.
BMC Remedy Smart Reporting uses a separate database which is different from AR production and AR replicated databases. BMC Remedy Smart Reporting database must always be in read and write mode.

Note:

For releases older than 9.1.00 Service Pack 2: To use the replicated AR database, you must apply the hotfix. Contact BMC Support to obtain the hotfix.
For 9.1.00 Service Pack 2 or later: BMC Remedy AR System Server supports a read-only replicated database for reporting operations.
- This enhancement is useful if you want the AR production data to be unaffected but allow BMC Remedy Smart Reporting users to continue with the reporting operations.
- BMC Remedy Smart Reporting users connect with the read-only replicated AR database.
- To avoid license update related issues, you must perform the user onboarding process by connecting with the AR production database. After completing the onboarding process, connect your AR System data source with read-only replicated AR database. For instructions, see Installing-BMC-Remedy-Smart-Reporting.

BMC Remedy AR System components are deployed on the replicated BMC Remedy AR System Server.
The following video demonstrates the deployment method for BMC Remedy Smart Reporting in which reports and dashboard data is fetched from replicated read-only AR database.

The following diagram illustrates the deployment model.

BMC suggests you to keep the AR server consumed by BMC Remedy Smart Reporting separate. Do not include it in the server group consumed by production environment.

AR Server to be consumed by Smart Reporting: Considerations

You must consider the following information relevant to the AR Server consumed by Smart Reporting:

When installing the AR server, ensure that the AR Server is connected to the Remedy production environment database and not the replicated database.
After installing the AR Server, you must apply the AR license key by connecting to the production environment database which is in read/write mode.
From the Remedy production environment database, delete the following references of AR Server:

Database table	Info to be deleted
servgrp_applic	select * from servgrp_applic; delete from servgrp_applic where serverName = 'name of the AR Server to be consumed by Smart Reporting'
servgrp_board	select * from servgrp_board; delete from servgrp_board where serverName = 'name of the AR Server to be consumed by Smart Reporting'
servgrp_config	select * from servgrp_config; delete from servgrp_config where serverName = ‘name of the AR Server to be consumed by Smart Reporting’;
servgrp_ftslic	select * from servgrp_ftslic; delete from servgrp_ftslic where serverName = ‘name of the AR Server to be consumed by Smart Reporting’;
servgrp_resources	select * from servgrp_resources; delete from servgrp_resources where serverName = ‘name of the AR Server to be consumed by Smart Reporting’
servgrp_userlic	select * from servgrp_userlic; delete from servgrp_userlic where serverName = ‘name of the AR Server to be consumed by Smart Reporting’

From the Remedy production environment AR System Server Group Operation Ranking form, do not remove any entries referencing the AR server consumed by Smart Reporting.

Update the following information in the ar.cfg or ar.conf file:

Modify the following parameters in ar.cfg or ar.conf file
Disable-Alerts: T Disable-Archive: T Disable-Escalations: T Full-Text-Mode: Disabled Full-Text-Disable-Indexing: T Full-Text-Disable-Searching: T

Update the following information in the armonitor.cfg or armonitor.conf file:
Comment out the following parameters in
armonitor.cfg or armonitor.conf file
FTS secondary plugin
Email Engine
Flashboard
Carte server
Approval
DSO
Shutdown the AR server and connect it to the replicated database. Below are the parameters that needs to change to reflect the Replicated SR database in the ar.cfg/ar.conf file
- Db-name: ARSystem
- Db-user: ARAdmin
- Db-Host-Name: <Replicated_DB_server_name>
Start the AR Server. In the arerror.log, If you see the following error message, ignore it:
Failed to update database "ARSystem" because the database is read-only
Proceed with the installation of Smart Reporting. BMC recommends to install Smart Reporting application on a separate server with a minimum of 16GB RAM.

Comment out the following parameters in armonitor.cfg or armonitor.conf file
FTS secondary plugin Email Engine Flashboard Carte server Approval DSO

Deploying on the same BMC Remedy AR System server

Note

This deployment method must be considered only for testing purpose. You must not deploy BMC Remedy Smart Reporting on the same AR System server in the production environment.

When you deploy BMC Remedy Smart Reporting in a BMC Remedy AR System environment:

You don't need a separate environment for BMC Remedy Smart Reporting.

You need to install BMC Remedy Smart Reporting on the same server, where the installer will install a different tomcat to deploy BMC Remedy Smart Reporting.

Deploying Remedy Smart Reporting in a cluster

You can cluster Remedy Smart Reporting on multiple servers to support high-availability and load-balancing. You can load-balance with a hardware load balancer or load-balancing software.

The load-balancing infrastructure must deliver network traffic to the Remedy Smart Reporting application server transparently—as if the packets were connecting directly to the application server. If Session Replication is not enabled, the load-balancing infrastructure must provide “sticky-session” functionality. This is where traffic for a user’s session is sent to the same node for the duration of their session.

For more information, see the Clustering guide in the Yellowfin documentation.