After you set the details of a target site, click on its Agents tab to configure its deployment agents. For each agent, click Add Agent to Site and supply agent data, then click Save Changes. Each agent requires the following data:
Name
The agent’s name—for example, Repository Agent. See Identify Deployment Agents for more information
Transport URL
The agent’s transport URL.
Include File Systems
Shows the VFS destinations to be updated by this agent. You populate this list from the Available File Systems list. For more information, see Plan Deployment Agent Responsibilities.
Note: Be sure to assign each asset type (repository or VFS) or asset destination (identified by its name in Nucleus) that resides in a shared data store to only one agent that uses the data store.
Essential
A checkbox that specifies whether this agent is required for deployment. During the deployment process, the DeploymentServer requires all essential agents in the target to be online and functional. If you do not set this checkbox for an agent, you identify it as an unessential agent—that is, it is not required for deployment. In this case, the unessential agent can be off-line and deployment can proceed if the following conditions are also true:
The
/atg/epub/DeploymentServer
propertyallowMissingNonEssentialAgents
is set to true. By default, this property is set to false. If set to false, unessential agents are treated like essential agents and must be online and functional during deployment.All agents that are flagged as essential are online and functional.
Note: This setting applies only to agents that are configured to deploy repository assets. An agent that is configured to deploy VFS assets is always regarded as essential, whether or not it is explicitly flagged as such.
During a deployment’s Activate Data phase, the DeploymentServer tries to contact all essential and unessential agents before it starts any task that might affect those agents—for example, flush repository caches and switch data stores. If an unessential agent is offline at that time, the DeploymentServer logs error messages before continuing the deployment. In this case, you might need to perform the following maintenance tasks on the agent after deployment is complete:
Manually flush its repositories’ caches.
If the agent is configured for deployments in switch mode, manually switch the agent’s switchable data stores so its current live stores are the same as other agents.
Note: This task is generally optional. A switch deployment always updates the newly inactive store (which is still used by the unessential agent) after updating and activating the newly live store. Also, the
DeploymentServer
automatically synchronizes all online agents during the next deployment’s Activate Data phase.