How to Create a WebLogic Cluster

You might need to create a cluster for the following reasons:

• To increase application availability with the server's failover capabilities

• To increase throughput by scaling applications across multiple servers

A cluster appears to clients as a single WebLogic Managed Server instance. The server instances that constitute a cluster can run on the same machine, or can be located on different machines. Each cluster member in a cluster must run the same version of WebLogic.

You can use this procedure to create a new cluster or you can use this procedure to register an existing cluster within the provisioning system by selecting the markOnly option.

Before You Begin

Before you create a WebLogic cluster, you must create a WebLogic domain, an Administration Server, and the Managed Servers that you plan to use in the cluster.

To create a WebLogic cluster, you must belong to a user group that has the Run Component Procedures permission on the folder that contains the component. You must also have the Allow on Host Set permission for the host set on which you plan to deploy the component.

Steps

1. In the Common Tasks section in the browser interface, click WebLogic 8.

2. Click the Cluster Management: Create link.

   The plan's Details page displays.

3. Click Run.

   The Run page displays.

4. In the Plan Parameters area, select the variable settings for the Cluster component that you plan to deploy.

   • If the variable settings have been established for this component, select the appropriate settings from the menu.

   • If the settings are not available from the menu, click Select From List.

     The Select Variable Settings From List window displays.

     • To create a new set of variable settings, select Create Set.

       The following list provides commonly updated variables for the ManagedServer component.

       variable set name

       Required. A name for the new variable set you create

       targetName

       Required. The name of the new cluster.

       clusterAddress

       Optional. This variable can be a DNS host name that maps to multiple IP addresses or a comma-separated list of single address host names or IP addresses. No value is necessary for this variable.

       multicastAddress

       This variable provides the address that cluster members can use to communicate with each other.

     • To use variable components from another component, click Import Set.

       For more information about importing variable sets, see How to Run a Plan in N1 Grid Service Provisioning System 5.0 Operation and Provisioning Guide.

5. Select the target host.

   Because you can only install a cluster on an Administrative Server, the target host is the AdminServer virtual host.

6. Deselect the Target Host Set checkbox.

7. If you are capturing an existing WebLogic cluster within the provisioning system, select the markOnly option.

8. Click Run Plan (Includes Preflight).