Clustering FAQs

Frequently asked questions about Sterling B2B Integrator clustering are provided.

In a clustered installation, which J2EE application servers and versions are supported?
The application Sterling B2B Integratordoes not directly run on any J2EE application servers.
Which clustering patterns does Sterling B2B Integrator support?
Sterling B2B Integrator supports active/active clusters, active/passive clusters, and hybrid configurations.
Who is responsible for configuring the clustering hardware/software?
The primary focus of IBM is the successful implementation of Sterling B2B Integrator within this environment.
Do any of the recommended performance settings change for clustered installations?
Performance fine-tuning is still applicable to a clustered environment and those parameters must still be reviewed.
How does a cluster recover from a major environmental failure?
Sterling B2B Integrator tracks all mid-stream activities within the system and maintains the details of the business processes and services.
In a clustered installation, how is load balancing achieved?
As a business process is placed in one of the Sterling B2B Integrator queues prior to being executed, an evaluation is made as to whether it should be distributed or executed on the current node.
How does the installation process differ when using clustering?
Each cluster instance must first be installed as usual.
Can clustering be used to achieve high availability?
An application cluster is the primary way to achieve high availability (HA).
In a clustered installation, how does the Sterling B2B Integrator system support fault tolerance?
If business processes are configured to take advantage of full persistence, many business processes can resume executing after a system failure by restarting at the step that was executing when the failure occurred.
What is the difference between failover and clustering?
Failover is having redundancy built into the environment, so that if a server fails, another server takes its place.
In a clustered installation, if an external resource isn't available, how does Sterling B2B Integrator deal with this?
When a process that is trying to access a particular resource fails and does not fail over to another node, manual intervention is necessary to either continue the process or wait for the external resource to become available and the process is restarted or resumed.
How does Sterling B2B Integrator deal with clustering issues for external resources?
Resources that cannot be clustered must be identified and deployed to a specific node by configuring the properties files for that cluster instance.
How does a clustered installation differ from a normal installation?
For specific information about installing or patching a cluster configuration, refer to the Installation Guide.
In a clustered installation, are there components other than Sterling B2B Integrator that should be clustered?
Depending on the reason for clustering, other components than Sterling B2B Integrator should be clustered.
In a clustered installation, do the application servers operate differently?
Application servers operate differently in a clustered installation most notably by their workload distribution, adapters, and operations.
In a clustered installation, how is Sterling B2B Integrator scaling supported?
Sterling B2B Integrator can be scaled through increasing the processing resources of each cluster node or by increasing the number of cluster nodes. In either case, you must ensure that the rest of the environment (network, database and underlying file systems) can handle these cluster node changes.

Parent topic: Clustered Installations