Load Balancing and High Availability

[Daljith]

Hi Cognoisers,

We have currently cognos setup on two servers. The first server has webserver, content manger, gateway, dispatcher. Second server acts just like a dispatcher. I do not see content manager configuration there. 

So that means the servers are configured for load balancing. if we have 20 reports running on the server, the reports will be routed to both the dispatchers based on set rules.

Now I am looking for converting the 2nd server for high availability. Is it possible that if somehow first server shuts down, automatically the second server starts running the reports. What kind of changes should I be making to my second server configuration to have this kind of setup.  Please suggest.


Ana

[MFGF]

We have currently cognos setup on two servers. The first server has webserver, content manger, gateway, dispatcher. Second server acts just like a dispatcher. I do not see content manager configuration there. 

So that means the servers are configured for load balancing. if we have 20 reports running on the server, the reports will be routed to both the dispatchers based on set rules.

Now I am looking for converting the 2nd server for high availability. Is it possible that if somehow first server shuts down, automatically the second server starts running the reports. What kind of changes should I be making to my second server configuration to have this kind of setup.  Please suggest.

Hi,

If I'm understanding correctly, you have your gateway and content manager on one server, and your application server processing on the other. This means both servers are required to process requests since no one server has all pieces of the architecture installed. Is that your situation?

You mention your servers are configured for load balancing, but unless you have the application server installed on both servers, they will not load balance requests. When you refer to there being a dispatcher on the first server, do you mean you have the application server component installed here too? A dispatcher will exist on a server with only content manager installed - it is required so that the servers can communicate with each other. It doesn't imply that application server tier is present, though.

To get load balancing you will need to have the application server tier installed on both servers.
To allow the first server to act as failover when the second server shuts down, you will need to have the application server tier installed on it.
To allow the second server to act as failover when the first server shuts down, you will need a standby content manager installed on it, and you will need a gateway installed on it (with a web server). You will also need a mechanism to route the http requests to this other web server when the first server disappears.

MF.