Large Scale DeploymentsScalability and Reliability

Paul HamptonDirector of Product Marketing

Alfresco

Introduction

● Alfresco provide enterprise scale Content Management

● Many moving partso Application server

o Database

o Index stores

o Content stores

o Application

● Multiple points for potential failure

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Single System Install

● Simple install

● Installs everything on one system

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EHCache

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Content storeDatabase

App Server

What Needs to be Clustered?

● Application Server

● Content Stores

● Databases

● The Application

● Note:

o Each server must have its own index

o EHCache must be synchronised between all servers

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Clustered Alfresco

● Clustered Alfresco serverso Share database and content

store

● Load balancer distributes load between servers

● Point of failureo Application Server o Database o Content store

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Load Balancer

Can make use of high availability disk (i.e. SAN storage)

Replicated Content Stores

● Used to synchronise content between content stores

● Supports two modes

o Inbound

o Outbound

● Point of failureo Application Server o Database o Content store

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Load Balancer

SecondaryContent

Store

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Database

ReplicatingContent

Store

ReplicatingContent

Store

Example – Inbound

● Content is copied on read

● Pulls content from secondary content store when needed

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Load Balancer

SecondaryContent

Store

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ReplicatingContent

Store

ReplicatingContent

Store

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Example – Outbound

● Content is copied on write

● Push content from primary store to secondary store

● Synchronous or Asynchronous

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Load Balancer

SecondaryContent

Store

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EHCache

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Database

ReplicatingContent

Store

ReplicatingContent

Store

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Database Clustering

● Use native DB clustering

● This is specific to the DB and OS

● Two options:

o Master / Slave

o Master / Master

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Load Balancer

SecondaryContent

Store

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EHCache

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EHCache

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Database

ReplicatingContent

Store

ReplicatingContent

Store

Database(Master)

Database(Slave)

Fallover

Database Clustering

Application Clustering

● Point of failureo Application Server o Database o Content store

● How to address scalability

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Tomcat

Share

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Load Balancer

What About Scalability?

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Tomcat

Share

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Load Balancer

JMX Administration

● Use standard JMX tools to access configuration settings

o Stop, Configure and Start Subsystems

● Monitor

o Database connections

o Memory usage

o Alfresco Subsystems

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Configuration Synchronisation

● Use JMX to change configuration settings

● Settings are saved to Database

● Settings are synchronised to other Alfresco servers

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Load Balancer

SecondaryContent

Store

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EHCache

Tomcat

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Data base

ReplicatingContent

Store

ReplicatingContent

Store

Summary

● Alfresco has been designed to be...o Scalable

o Reliable

● Multiple options ● Enterprise Edition configuration tools simplify

configuration● More Information

o WIKI – Cluster Configuration

o Docs – Administering an Alfresco ECM Production Environment (page 158)

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Questions?

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