Setting up your web-app cluster for Distributed Marketing

You must set up a cluster in the WebSphere Application Server so that you can create server nodes.

About this task

To set up the IBM WebSphere Application Server cluster, refer to the IBM WebSphere Application Server documentation. Make sure that the IBM HTTP Server and the IBM HTTP Server plug-ins are installed on the server machine on which the IBM WebSphere Application Server Deployment Manager Profile is created. Contact your system administrator to install the IBM HTTP Server and plug-ins on the application server.

Starting the web-app cluster nodes

About this task

Before you start the IBM WebSphere Application Server cluster from the WebSphere console, you must start the WebSphere Application Server cluster nodes on each machine and then start the web server (IBM HTTP Server). If the cluster did not start successfully, make sure that your WebSphere Application Server cluster nodes are running on each application server. Then, make sure that each server started. You can go to the cluster members and start each application server manually. Finally, create the application server JNDIs.

Deploying the EAR and WAR files on your cluster

About this task

The WAR deployment steps are slightly different in an IBM WebSphere Application Server cluster for Distributed Marketing. Before you proceed with the WAR deployment, you must deploy Marketing Platform and Campaign applications.

Procedure

  1. Deploy Distributed Marketing on the WebSphere Application Server cluster. When you select the node for application deployment, select the WebSphere Application Server cluster node name to browse for the application.
  2. Select the cluster application server and WebServer on the Map Modules to servers screen of deployment. Check the check box for collaborate.war, and click Apply.

What to do next

For the other deployment steps, you can follow the normal WAR file deployment process in IBM WebSphere Application Server.

Deploying Distributed Marketing on each node

About this task

Distributed Marketing must be deployed on each node present in the WebSphere Application Server cluster. There are additional steps that you must follow in addition to the WebSphere guidelines that are apart from the normal deployment steps.

You must provide the absolute path for the following configuration parameters when you deploy Distributed Marketing on a web-app clustered environment. This is required because the different WebSphere cluster nodes running Distributed Marketing are not able to access the relative path if these configurations are not defined.

In Distributed Marketing, data for templates, forms, and attachments is stored in the file system. The object store location is specified in the Distributed Marketing configuration. For example:
  1. Settings for Attachment (Affinium|Collaborate|UDM Configuration Settings|Attachment).

    It contains the file system location for Campaign Attachments: collaborateAttachmentsDIRECTORY_directory = "/IMS/Campaign/partitions/partition1.

  2. Settings for Attachment Folders (Affinium|Collaborate|UDM Configuration Settings|Attachment Folders).
    It contains the file system location for Lists, On-demand Campaigns, and Corporate Campaigns workflow tasks attachments:
    • uploadDir = /opt/DMCluster/DistributedMarketing/projectattachments
    • taskUploadDir = /opt/DMCluster/DistributedMarketing/taskattachments
  3. Settings for Templates (Affinium|Collaborate|UDM Configuration Settings|Templates).

    It contains the file system location for storing templates: templatesDir = /opt/DMCluster/DistributedMarketing/template.

Disabling notification threads

About this task

If you are running a notification on a single node in a cluster, you must provide the following JVM parameter to disable notification threads on a particular cluster node.
-Ddm.suppressNotifications=true

Procedure

  • If the WebSphere Application Server cluster has four nodes, you need to add the JVM parameter in three JVM cluster nodes except the one you want to run the notifications.
  • If the WebSphere Application Server cluster has four nodes and you added this JVM parameter in two nodes and notification threads are enabled on more than one cluster node, there is a chance multiple notifications are sent.