WebLogic guidelines

You must complete extra steps if you plan to install Marketing Operations on a cluster in WebLogic.

Preparing to install

Before you begin, you must create a WebLogic domain for the cluster. For help with this step, see the WebLogic documentation.

Preparing the data sources

The data source chapter instructs you to create a database for Marketing Operations and then configure a JDBC data source for it in your application server. When you complete these tasks for a cluster, note the following extra instructions:

  • You must configure the web application servers to use the correct JDBC driver on all machines in the cluster.
  • Create the data source for the Marketing Platform system tables (UnicaPlatformDS) on both the administration server and the cluster members.
  • When you create the data source for the Marketing Operations system tables (plands), deploy it to the cluster and not to the administration server. Select All servers in the cluster.

Installing the products

When you run the installer, be sure that you install Marketing Platform and Marketing Operations once on the machine that is designated as the administration server for the cluster. You do not need to install the software on each cluster member. Instead, you install it once on the administration server, create the EAR, and then deploy the EAR file on each cluster member.

Pre-deployment steps

Before you deploy Marketing Operations, complete the following tasks in addition to the ones specified in the pre-deployment configuration chapter:

  • Share the top-level directory in which Marketing Operations is installed. For example, say that Marketing Operations is installed in the following directory: C:\MktOpsCluster\IBM_IMS\MarketingOperations. In this case, you would share the entire MktOpsCluster directory.
  • Create and share a folder on the administration server to contain the upload files for Marketing Operations. This folder is known as the Shared_UMO_Artifacts folder. All cluster members must have full control (read, write, change, and delete) of this folder. Placing this folder below the HCL® home directory in the local file system hierarchy is optional.

Deploying the application on WebLogic

In addition to the instructions in the deployment chapter, note the following additions:

1. Set Source accessibility option

When you deploy the EAR on the administration server, set the Source accessibility option to Use the defaults defined by the deployment's targets.

2. Extra instructions for setting the JAVA_OPTIONS

Remember to configure the JAVA_OPTIONS property in the setenv file on each machine in the cluster.

The path that you specify in the plan.home property must point to the shared installation directory.

There are two extra parameters to set for clusters:

  • -DPLAN_CONFIG_GUID=Plan
  • On the machines that must not send notifications, set the "suppress notifications" parameter as follows:

    -Dplan.suppressNotifications=true

    Verify that the suppressNotifications property is set to false on the machine that is designated to send notifications. Set this property to true on every other machine.

3. Define an alternate ehcache file

The plan_ehcache.xml file that is defined in the CONF directory is used for every node in the cluster. To override this default file on a node, edit startWeblogic.cmd (Windows™) or startWeblogic.sh (UNIX™) on that node to configure the JAVA_OPTIONS property: add the -plan_ehcache parameter to specify the location of another plan_ehcache.xml file.

Configuring the session management cookie

To define the name of the session management cookie that is used by servers in the cluster, you edit the plan.war file that is created by the installer and deployed on your application server.

Complete the following steps to configure the session management cookie:

  1. Open a Command Prompt and verify that the Java™ version is the same as the JRE used by Marketing Operations: type java -version.
  2. Copy plan.war into a temporary folder and rename the original plan.war file.
  3. Unpack the contents of the new, temporary plan.war archive: type jar -xvf plan.war.
  4. Delete the unpacked plan.war: type rm plan.war.
  5. Change to the WEB-INF directory: type cd WEB-INF.
  6. Edit the web.xml file to add this tag to override the cookie name:
    <init-param>
   <param-name>CookieName</param_name>
   <param-value>UMOSESSIONID</param-value>
</init-param>
  7. Repack the plan.war: type cd .. then jar -cvf * plan.war.
  8. Copy the updated plan.war back to its original location on the server.
  9. Deploy the updated plan.war.

Post-deployment steps

If you are using a plug-in for load balancing, complete the following configuration steps:

  • For HCL Marketing Operations to work effectively in a clustered environment, users must remain on a single node for their entire session. This option for session management and load balancing is known as sticky sessions or sticky load balancing. For more information about configuring your installation to use this option, see the documentation for your application server.
    Note: When a node fails on a system that uses this configuration option, every user session on that node also fails. The load balancer must switch users to another available node, as user authentication applies only to a single node in Marketing Operations. Users are prompted to log in again, and in some cases an unexpected error and corresponding data loss can occur.
  • Log in to Marketing Operations and select Settings > Configuration. Configure the following URL parameters so that all references to the Marketing Operations server use the proxy host and port:
    • Marketing Operations | navigation | serverURL
    • Marketing Operations | umoConfiguration | markup | markupServerURL
    • Marketing Operations | umoConfiguration | notifications | notifyPlanBaseURL