IBM Streams 4.2

IBM Streams domains

An IBM® Streams domain is a logical grouping of resources in a network for common management and administration. To use IBM Streams, you must create at least one domain.

There are two main types of domains: basic and enterprise. You can create both types of domains by using the Domain Manager or the streamtool mkdomain command.

A basic domain has a single IBM Streams resource and user. This type of domain is typically used for test or development environments. IBM Streams uses the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) authentication service for user authentication, and Apache ZooKeeper for managing and storing configuration information. By default, IBM Streams uses an embedded version of ZooKeeper, which is included in the product installation. If you use an external ZooKeeper server, it must be set up before you create the basic domain.

An enterprise domain can have multiple resources and users. This type of domain is typically used for production environments. You can configure high availability to ensure that IBM Streams can continue to run even if resources fail or are not available. For high availability, you need to set up and configure an Apache ZooKeeper server for managing and storing configuration information. The method that you use to authenticate users in the domain must also be highly available. The type of enterprise domain that you create depends on your authentication mechanism. The following options are available as default authentication methods:

Enterprise PAM domain: For high availability, use a Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) with the LDAP backend. PAM must be set up and configured before you create the domain. The LDAP server must be accessible from the resource that is running the authentication and authorization services. There are other options that might not be highly available, such as PAM with a UNIX backend. For this option, the IBM Streams users must be defined on this system.
Enterprise LDAP domain: For high availability, use a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server. LDAP must be set up and configured before you create the domain.