Planning for Advanced services

The IBM® Sametime® Advanced Server adds social networking features to the Sametime client with such features as persistent chat rooms, broadcast messages, polling, screen sharing, and remote computer control.

The Advanced Server requires a DB2® database and a connection with LDAP for authentication. Persistent chat rooms are managed and maintained by the Advanced Server itself and transcript logs in those rooms are automatically accessible on the server.

IBM Connections and Sametime Communicate integrate through the Broadcast Chat feature in the Advanced Server. Basically, each community you belong to in IBM Connections becomes a channel in your instant messaging client. That means that you can collaborate in real-time with the community.

Components

The following components must be deployed in a Sametime environment that combines instant messaging and presence with persistent chat rooms and broadcast communities:
  • Sametime System Console - used for managing and administering servers from a central location
  • DB2
  • LDAP directory
  • Sametime Community Server
  • Sametime Advanced Server
  • Sametime Proxy Server (optional) - provides an optional integrated chat and presence client experience
  • Sametime Meeting Server - While the Advanced server provides the screen sharing capability, it utilizes the Meeting server for the Meeting Rooms. The Meeting Server is required for screen sharing with the Instant Share feature.
  • One or more clients:
    • Sametime Connect client
    • Sametime client embedded in IBM Notes®
    • Browser client

Considerations

Things to know about this deployment:
  • Requires a DB2 database
  • Requires installing and enabling the Net search extender service for DB2 and creating the text index. Scripts are provided for this.
  • Uses a guided activity in the Sametime System Console to deploy the Sametime Advanced Server as a Primary Node.
Note: When Sametime Advanced Servers and Sametime Meeting Servers share the same cell, the WebSphere® HTTP Proxy sometimes routes internal requests to the wrong node. This is due to the applications sharing similar paths, which can cause ambiguity in the routing table. The routing table needs to uniquely identify the request to the specific application, and without distinct virtual hosts, the routing is ambiguous. The most obvious symptoms of the problem are that users are not able to attend meetings consistently or users do not see other users who are in the same meeting room. For a solution, see the technote When Sametime Advanced is federated to the same cell as Sametime Meetings, users have multiple issues attending meetings.

Advanced Server clusters

You can create two types of clusters:

  • A vertical cluster resides on the Primary node and includes two or more cluster members, which run the same application.
  • A horizontal cluster includes a Primary node plus one or mode Secondary nodes, all running the same application.
The Sametime Advanced Server as a stand-alone cell can be clustered using a Guided Activity in the Sametime System Console. All clustered servers in the WebSphere Application Server must use the same cell profile. When installing the first server of a cluster, select the Primary Node profile. Subsequent cluster members are installed using the Secondary Node option. Before you can configure a cluster of Sametime Advanced servers, you must have installed the following servers:
  • The Sametime System Console

    This server can function as the Deployment Manager for the cluster.

    Attention: Each Deployment Manager (including the Sametime System Console when it is used as a Deployment Manager) can support one cluster of each Sametime product. For example, a single Deployment Manager can support a Meeting Server cluster, a Media Manager cluster, and an Advanced Server cluster. If you want to create additional clusters for a particular product, you must deploy additional Deployment Managers.
  • Sametime Community Servers

    At least one Sametime Community Server must be deployed. The Sametime Community Server provides presence and awareness for chats.

  • One Sametime Advanced Server installed with the Network Deployment > Primary Node option.

    Every cluster requires one Primary Node. The application server on the Primary Node will function as the cluster's application template. All other application servers in the cluster (nodes and cluster members) will be duplicated from the Primary Node's application server. The Primary node's application server can only belong to one cluster. The Primary Node can be used as a container for additional cluster members when creating a vertical cluster (multiple cluster members on the same physical system).

  • One or more servers installed with the Network Deployment > Secondary Node option.

    Secondary nodes are used to horizontally scale your cluster across multiple physical systems. These additional nodes act as containers for additional cluster members, which can be used to balance loads and provide failover within the cluster. During the clustering process, you can deploy additional product application servers on any Secondary Nodes within the cluster, creating a horizontal cluster (one cluster member on each Secondary Node, plus one cluster member or one vertical cluster on the Primary Node).

The graphic that follows shows a cluster of Advanced Servers with the ports used to communicate between servers and between the client and servers. The following servers are deployed:
  • LDAP Server
  • Sametime Community Server
  • Sametime Proxy Server
  • Sametime System Console
  • 3 Sametime Advanced Servers
  • DB2
  • Sametime Media Manager
The following protocols and port numbers are used between components:
  • LDAP and Sametime Community Server: TCP 389 or 636
  • LDAP and Sametime Media Manager: TCP 389 or 636
  • Sametime Community Server and Sametime Proxy Server: TCP 1516
  • DB2 and Sametime System Console: TCP 5000 or 50001
  • DB2 and Sametime Advanced Servers: TCP 5000 or 50001
  • Internal client and Sametime Community Server: VP 1533
  • Internal client and Sametime Advanced Server: TCP 80 or 443
  • Internal client and Sametime Proxy Server: TCP 80 or 443
  • Sametime client and Sametime Advanced Server: MQTT 1883
  • Sametime Advanced Server and Sametime System Console: SOAP 8880
  • Sametime client and Sametime Advanced Server: UDP 1510

Sametime Advanced Server Cluster

Load Balancer

A cluster of Sametime Advanced Servers requires an IBM Load Balancer or other load balancer with session affinity and sticky time to route traffic to the servers.