Setting up a WebSphere cluster

You can set up a WebSphere® cluster and deploy the Sterling Configurator Visual Modeler to the cluster.

A typical WebSphere cluster comprises:

• A deployment manager server
• Two or more applications servers running on the same or different machines: these are the cluster member servers
• A load balancing server: this is the Web server to which users point their browsers and which distributes requests to the cluster member servers.

  The following figure illustrates the WebSphere cluster configuration.

  
• Set up the deployment manager on a machine in your network. It need not run on the same machine on any of the application servers, but the deployment manager and application servers should all be running on the same segment of a local area network. Start the deployment manager (either through the UI or at the command line in websphere_home/AppServer/bin/, enter: startServer dmgr).

  You use the deployment manager to manage the WebSphere cell: this is where the cluster is run.

• Install your application servers on the cluster member machines. Each cluster member machine is referred to as a node. You can create one or more application servers on each node.
• Start the node agent on each node: typically you do this at the command line, by navigating to websphere_home/AppServer/bin/ and entering: startNode.
• The node agent is what the deployment manager uses to communicate with each node in its cell.
• Log in to the Deployment Manager administration UI.
• Add nodes to the cell by clicking System Administration > Nodes, and clicking Add Node in the Nodes panel.
• For each node, add the application servers running on the node to the cell by clicking Servers > Application Servers, and clicking New in the Application Servers panel. You must select each node in turn and specify a unique name for each server on the node.

  When you have completed creating all the application servers, then you must create the cluster.

• In the Deployment Manager UI, click Servers - > Clusters, and then click New in the Server Cluster panel.
• Enter a name for the cluster and then without add servers to the cluster complete the creation of the cluster.
• Once the cluster is created, select the cluster form the list of clusters. On the Server Cluster page, click Cluster members and use the Cluster members page to add application servers to the cluster.

  When you have added all the application servers to the cluster, check that you can start and stop the cluster by clicking Servers > Clusters, check the check box for the new cluster, and click Start. Verify that the cluster starts without any errors, and then click Stop.