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Administrator Guide
Unica Campaign listeners
The listener is a key component of Unica Campaign. It provides an interface between front-end clients and back-end analytical server processes.
The master listener
A clustered listener configuration always includes a master listener. The master listener is a lightweight application whose job is to perform load balancing. It allocates requests to each of the running listeners in the cluster.

Administrator Guides
- Administrator Guide
  - Unica Campaign administration overview
    The Settings menu provides access to most of the tasks that Unica Campaign administrators typically perform.
  - Security in Unica Campaign
    Security policies control user access to the objects and features in Unica Campaign.
  - Database table administration
    Unica Campaign administrators must perform initial one-time tasks and routine administration tasks that pertain to database tables.
  - Customizing campaigns
    Administrators can customize campaigns by using custom campaign attributes, initiatives, and products.
  - Offer template concepts
    Before administrators perform offer template management tasks, there are several important concepts to understand.
  - About audience level administration
    Unica Campaign is delivered with a single audience level called Customer. You can define any additional audience levels that you need. Audience levels let flowchart designers target specific groups, such as Households, in marketing campaigns.
  - Before you begin working with contact history
    Contact history is stored in the Unica Campaign system database in separate tables by audience level. Therefore, you need to set up audience levels before you begin working with contact history.
  - Response history administration
    Before you begin working with response history, you should read the audience level administration topics and set up required audience levels.
  - Monitoring and controlling flowchart runs
    Choose Campaign > Monitoring and use the All monitored runs page to view the status of all active flowcharts and suspend, resume, or stop flowchart runs.
  - Dimension hierarchy concepts
    A dimension hierarchy is a data construct that groups data into bins based on value ranges. Dimension hierarchies are the basis for a variety of reports.
  - Triggers administration
    Unica Campaign allows you to define inbound and outbound triggers that can be used in all flowcharts in a partition.
  - Unica Campaign log files
    Unica Campaign records information in several different log files.
  - JVM Parameters
  - About codes in Unica Campaign
    Each campaign, cell, offer, and treatment in Unica Campaign has an identifying code that is generated by code generators, and conforms to a specified format.
  - Accessing the Advanced settings
    When a flowchart is open for editing, administrators can choose the Advanced settings option on the Admin menu to make administrative changes that affect only the current flowchart.
  - Unica Campaign integration with other products
    Unica Campaign optionally integrates with a number of other products.
  - Unica Campaign listeners
    The listener is a key component of Unica Campaign. It provides an interface between front-end clients and back-end analytical server processes.
    - Definition of listener terms
      The following terms are used when discussing Unica Campaign listeners and listener clustering.
    - Front-end and back-end components
      Unica Campaign consists of two main components.
    - Unica Campaign Listener (unica_aclsnr)
      The Unica Campaign listener (unica_aclsnr) allows clients such as the Unica Campaign web application to connect to back-end analytical server processes.
    - Configuration settings for a single-node listener configuration
      The configuration properties for single-node listener environments are set automatically during installation or upgrade. However, you can adjust them by choosing Settings > Configuration.
    - Configuration settings for a clustered listener configuration
      The configuration properties for clustered listeners are set automatically during installation. However, you can adjust them by choosing Settings > Configuration.
    - Listener clustering
      Clustering involves the use of multiple listeners for the purpose of high availability and load balancing.
    - Diagram of listener clustering
      This diagram illustrates a three-node listener cluster configuration.
    - Supported listener clustering configurations
      This topic pertains to a clustered listener configuration.
    - The master listener
      A clustered listener configuration always includes a master listener. The master listener is a lightweight application whose job is to perform load balancing. It allocates requests to each of the running listeners in the cluster.
      - Master listener priority
        A listener cluster always includes one master listener, whose job is to coordinate load balancing across the cluster. The masterListenerPriority configuration setting determines which node is initially used as the master listener.
    - Load based routing load balancing
      This topic pertains to a clustered listener configuration. To achieve load balancing, Unica Campaign uses a load based routing algorithm. This algorithm maintains a weighted list of servers, where a heavier (higher) weight indicates preference.
    - Listener failover
      This topic pertains to a clustered listener configuration. As long as at least one Unica Campaign listener is viable, failover should occur without disruption.
    - Log files for clustered listeners
      Log files for a clustered listener configuration are in the following locations.
    - Shared network location for clustered listeners
      A clustered listener configuration for Unica Campaign requires that certain files and folders must be shared and accessible to all listeners in a cluster. Therefore, you must have a shared file system in place.
    - Utilities for clustered listeners
      In general, you use the Unica Campaign utilities in a clustered listener environment the same way that you use them in a single-node environment. However, there are some differences to be aware of.
    - Starting and stopping Unica Campaign listeners
      If you install a listener as a Windows™ service or as part of the init process on UNIX™, the listener starts automatically when you start the server. You can also start and stop a listener manually.
  - Unica Campaign utilities
    Administrators use the Unica Campaign utilities to manage listeners, sessions, and flowcharts, and perform other important administrative tasks.
  - Configuring the ACOOptAdmin tool
    Configure the ACOOptAdmin tool to run Unica Optimize sessions from the command line.
  - Non-ASCII data in Unica Campaign
    Unica Campaign supports the use of localized data and non-United States locales, including multiple user-preferred locales within the same installation of the application.
  - Configuration properties for Unica Campaign
    The configuration properties of Unica Campaign are located at SettingsConfiguration. For more details on the configuration properties, see the Campaign Administrator Guide.
  - About special characters
    Some special characters are not supported in any Unica Campaign object names. In addition, some objects have specific naming restrictions.
  - Introduction to character encodings
    This section provides information on character encodings and language-sensitive database considerations, and lists the encodings supported by Unica Campaign.
  - About Unica Campaign Error Codes
    Unica Campaign notifies users of error events when they occur with error messages that consist of a code number and error text.
  - Troubleshooting
- System Tables

The master listener

A clustered listener configuration always includes a master listener. The master listener is a lightweight application whose job is to perform load balancing. It allocates requests to each of the running listeners in the cluster.

The master listener includes a load balancer component that coordinates load distribution across the cluster. The master listener and the load balancer function as a unit.

If the master listener goes down for any reason (hardware, software, or network failure), the Unica Campaign Web application detects the failure. The web application asks the next node to become the master listener. The requested listener performs the master listener election, and the highest priority node that is available becomes the master listener. Failover occurs automatically. Since the load balancer is a component of the master listener, the new master listener then handles load balancing.

There is always one master listener in a cluster. Any node in the cluster can perform as a master listener. The Unica Campaign configuration settings determine which node initially acts as the master listener (masterListenerPriority) and how load is balanced across clustered nodes (loadBalanceWeight).

If you have only a single listener, then load balancing and failover are not possible. A single listener performs all responsibilities without any additional listener nodes. However, if a failure occurs, and reconnection is possible, the listener is automatically restarted whenever possible. Upon restart, the listener recovers all of its back-end process connections.

For example, if a listener process is restarted, communication between the Web server and the listener are restored without user intervention. The Web server retries until the listener is available and then reconnects with the listener for each user session that was in progress.

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