16 Scaling Up / Scaling Out WebLogic Domains

About Scaling Up / Scaling Out WebLogic Domains

A WebLogic Domain consists of a set of managed servers running independently or in a cluster, sharing the distributed resources. A WebLogic Server cluster consists of multiple WebLogic managed servers running simultaneously and working together to provide increased scalability and reliability. The server instances that constitute a cluster can run on the same machine, or be located on different machines. You can increase a cluster's capacity by adding additional server instances to the cluster on an existing machine, or by adding machines to the cluster to host the new server instances. You can use the Domain Scale Up / Scale Out deployment procedure to automate the scaling up or scaling out of a domain. You can:

• Scale up a domain by adding or cloning a managed server to a host that already exists in the domain or cluster.

• Scale out a domain by adding or cloning a managed server to a host that is not present in the domain or cluster.

Prerequisites for Designers and Operators

This section describes the prerequisites required by Designer and Operator users before the Middleware Provisioning deployment procedures can be executed. It contains the following sections:

• Prerequisites for Designers

• Prerequisites for Operators

• Additional Prerequisites on Windows

Prerequisites for the Deployment Procedure

Before running the Scale Up / Scale Out Middleware deployment procedure, meet the following prerequisites:

• The WebLogic Domain that is scaled up / scaled out must be an existing domain that has been discovered with Cloud Control.

• If you are scaling out a domain, ensure that the destination machine contains sufficient space. If the size of the Middleware Home on the source machine is 3 GB, you need approximately 3 GB in the working directory on the source and destination machines. Additionally, the destination machine should also have 3 GB of space for the Middleware Home. The working directory is cleaned up after deployment procedure has been successfully completed.

• The Middleware Home directory you specify on the destination machine must be a new directory or must be empty.

• The Management Agent must be installed on the source (where the Administration Server is running) and the destination machines. The Administration Server for the domain must be up and running.

• The Administration Server and Managed Server (being cloned) must be up and running before you run the deployment procedure.

• The Managed Server and Node Manager ports must be free.

• For scaling out a domain, the user must have the following permissions:

  • Read permissions on:

    • Administration Server Host Middleware Directory

    • Administration Server Host Domain Directory

  • Write permissions on:

    • Administration Server Host Working Directory

    • Working Directory of all the destination Managed Server hosts

    • Middleware Directory of all the destination Managed Server hosts

    • Domain Directory of all the destination Managed Server hosts

• For scaling up a domain, the user must have the following permissions:

  • Read permissions on:

    • Administration Server Host Working Directory

    • Domain Directory of all the destination Managed Server hosts

• The domain being scaled up / out should not be in Edit mode. Ensure that there is a running WebLogic Console for this domain.

• If you choose to associate the Node Manager with an existing machine, you must ensure that the Node Manager is up and running. If the Node Manager is down or unreachable, the deployment procedure will fail.

Running the Scale Up / Scale Out Middleware Deployment Procedure

To scale up / scale out a WebLogic Domain, follow these steps:

1. From the Targets menu, select Middleware.

2. A list of Middleware targets is displayed. Find the WebLogic Domain that you want to use as the source for the cloning operation. Right click on that WebLogic Domain to access the context sensitive menu. From the menu, select Provisioning and Scale Up / Scale Out WebLogic Domain. The WebLogic Domain Scale Up: Source page is displayed.

3. In the Source Information section, the details of the source domain including the Middleware Home, WebLogic Server Home, and the Middleware Domain Location are displayed.

4. Enter the credentials for the Administration Server Console and Host Credentials. For more information on registering a name for the preferred credentials, see Managing Named Credentials.

   • Preferred Credentials: The preferred credentials stored in the Management Repository are used. The Preferred Credentials option will be available only if it has already been defined in Cloud Control.

   • Named Credentials: The credentials stored in the Management Repository is used. To use the Named Credentials stored in the Management Repository, you must have already registered each of the preferred credential types with a unique name. Select the desired Named credential from the list available in Credential Name. If you have created all necessary named credentials, you can use them now. If they have not been created, you can create them using this deployment procedure.

   • New Credentials: You can override the preferred credentials by specifying a new credential with a unique name and password.

5. In the Working Directory field, specify the directory on the Administration Server machine on which the domain scale up related files are temporarily stored. If this directory is not present, it will be created. When the scale up operation has been completed, the directory and its contents will be deleted.

   Note:

   The Working Directory must not be created under the Middleware Home or the WebLogic Domain Home directory.

6. Click Next. The WebLogic Domain Scale Up: Managed Servers page is displayed.

7. Select a domain or a cluster from the left panel. You can then do the following:

   • Click Add Server in the left panel. A new server appears in the tree in the left panel. Click on the newly added server and enter the configuration details on the right panel. In the Managed Server section, enter the name of the host on which the managed server is to be added, the name of the new server, listen address, port, and the SSL port if applicable. If you checked the Enable SSL checkbox, enter the number of the SSL port for secure requests. The port numbers you specify for the Listen Port and the SSL Listen Port must be available on the target machine.

     • Host Credentials: Enter the credentials for the Managed Server host. You can choose Preferred Credentials, Named Credentials, or New Credentials. Ensure that the same credentials are used for multiple destination hosts.

     • Software Installation: The location of the domain and the Middleware Home on the new Managed Server are displayed. These locations will be the same as those present on the Administration Server. In the Working Directory field, specify the path to the temporary directory that will be created on each Managed Server host. This directory is used to store provisioning scripts and will cleaned up when the deployment procedure has been successfully completed.

   • Select a server from the list and click Add Server and Copy Attributes in the left panel. A new server which is a copy of the one you selected will be created. You must configure the new server to proceed with the provisioning.

   • Select a server that you have created from the list and click the Delete Server. The selected Managed Server will not be created as part of this scale up/out operation.

8. In the Configure Machines section, you can choose to:

   • Do not associate with any machine (Node Manager): If you select this option, the Node Manager is not associated with the machine and you cannot use the Node Manager console to start the Managed Server Host.

   • Create a new machine (Node Manager): Select this option to create a new machine and specify the machine name, node manager address, and port number. If the Node Manager is not up and running, check to ensure that there is no address or port conflict.

   • Associate with an existing machine (Node Manager): Select this option to associate the Node Manager with an existing machine. You must select the machine with which the Node Manager is to be associated from the Machine Name drop down list.

     Note:

     To perform administrative operations such as start and stop from the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, the Node Manager must be configured and running on the machine.

9. In the Software Installation section, in the Working Directory field, enter the full path to the directory on which the files required for scale up will be staged.

10. In the Managed Server Credentials section, enter the user name and password for the host on which the managed server is to be created.

11. In the Schedule page, specify a Deployment Instance name. If you want to run the procedure immediately, then retain the default selection, that is, One Time (Immediately). If you want to run the procedure later, then select One Time (Later) and provide time zone, start date, and start time details. You can set the notification preferences according to deployment procedure status. If you want to run only prerequisites, you can select Pause the procedure after the necessary prerequisite checks have been completed to pause the procedure execution after all prerequisite checks are performed. Click Next.

12. On the Review page, review the details you have provided for the Deployment Procedure. If you are satisfied with the details, then click Submit to run the Deployment Procedure according to the schedule set. If you want to modify the details, click the Edit link in the section to be modified or click Back repeatedly to reach the page where you want to make the changes.

13. In the Procedure Activity page, view the status of the execution of the job and steps in the deployment procedure. Click the Status link for each step to view the details of the execution of each step. You can click Debug to set the logging level to Debug and click Stop to stop the procedure execution.

Middleware Provisioning and Scale Up / Scale Out Best Practices

This section lists some of the best practices to be followed while using the Middleware Provisioning deployment procedure.

• Configuration of the source domain should not be changed: While executing these deployment procedures, ensure that no administrative activities (such as configuration changes on the source domain and software patching) are actively performed on the source domain. If you change the configuration, the managed server may not respond to requests and the Administration Server will have an Unknown status.

• Provisioning on the same machine: If you are using the Deployment Procedure to provision or scale up to the same machine as the source, the working directory on the source and target machines is populated by default. If these values are changed, you must ensure that the working directory on the source and the destination machines are different. For example, if the working directory is /tmp/source for the source machine, it could be /tmp/dest on the destination directory. You must also ensure that the listen port number and SSL port numbers (if enabled) for the Administration Server and Managed Server are different on the source and destination servers.

• Unique Farm Prefix: While using the Provision Middleware Deployment Procedure, ensure that the farm prefix is unique. The farm prefix gets appended to the domain name to uniquely identify a given domain in Cloud Control.

• JDBC Configuration: While configuring the JDBC data sources, the database user and schema owner must enter appropriate passwords.

• Custom Java Applications and their Deployment Plan: These deployment procedures support custom java applications in staged mode. Externally staged applications need to be manually deployed. For instructions on manual deployment, see the WebLogic Administration Guide.

• Multi NIC Machines: If the destination machine is a multi NIC system, enter a listen address that is accessible to both the Administration Server and Managed Server.