WebSphere clustering guidelines

Preparing the data sources

In addition to any other instructions provided in this guide, complete the following tasks for your data sources:

• The HCL Campaign database must be on a server that is accessible to all servers in the cluster, but it does not need to be on a server in the cluster.
• When you configure the JDBC provider, specify the cluster as the scope.

Installing the products

When you run the installer, be sure that you install Marketing Platform and HCL Campaign only once, on a server that is designated as the administration server for the cluster. The administration server is accessible to all servers in the HCL Campaign cluster.

You do not need to install the software on each cluster member. Instead, you install it on the administration server, create the EAR or WAR file, and then deploy the EAR or WAR file on each cluster member.

Pre-deployment steps

Before you deploy HCL Campaign, complete the following task:

• Share the top-level directory in which HCL Campaign is installed. For example, if you installed Campaign in C:\CampaignCluster\IBM_EMM\Campaign, you would share the entire CampaignCluster directory.

Deployment steps

In addition to the instructions in the deployment chapter (Deploying the Marketing PlatformCampaignDistributed MarketingeMessageContact OptimizationInteractLeadsOpportunity DetectDigital Analytics for On PremisesCustomerInsightPredictiveInsightMarketing OperationsInteraction HistoryAttribution ModelerIBM SPSS Modeler Advantage Enterprise Marketing Management Edition web application), complete the following tasks:

1. Map modules to servers. When you set the options in the Select Installation Options wizard for WebSphere, select the cluster and the web server when mapping modules to servers.
2. Extra instructions for the Generic JVM property: Configure the Generic JVM property on each server in the cluster.

   The path that you specify in the <CAMPAIGN_HOME> and other properties must point to the shared installation directory.

   Set the following extra parameters for clusters:

   • When HCL Campaign is deployed in cluster mode, enable cache replication by setting the following parameter to true for each cluster node.

     -Dcampaign.ehcache.enable=true

   • Set the following parameter to the location where campaign_ehcache.xml is located:

     -Dcampaign.ehcache.path=<CAMPAIGN_HOME>\conf

     Where <CAMPAIGN_HOME> is the path to the HCL Campaign installed location.

Post-deployment steps

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

• For HCL Campaign 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 session affinity. The documentation for your application server provides details about configuring your installation to use session affinity.
  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 not switch users to another available node because user authentication applies only to a single node in HCL Campaign. Users are prompted to log in again. In some cases, an unexpected error and corresponding data loss can occur.
• Log in to HCL Campaign. Select Settings > Configuration, and configure the following URL parameters so that all references to the HCL Campaign server use the proxy host and port:

  Campaign | navigation | serverURL