1. System Administration Guide
  2. Installing and Configuring the Coherence Server

Installing and Configuring the Coherence Server

The Coherence Server is a standalone Java application. To simplify deployment, management, and configuration, we've integrated it with the Siebel Application Internal. Coherence runs as a container within the Application Internal. As a result, installing Coherence requires installing the Siebel Application Internal. The steps to install Coherence are the same as those for installing the Siebel Application Internal.

To install Coherence on each node

  1. Run the Siebel Installer on the Coherence node.
  2. When the installer gets to the Component Selection screen, choose the following three components only.
    1. Installation Components section
      1. Siebel Enterprise Components
    2. Configuration Tasks section
      1. Enterprise Container Configuration
      2. Application Interface Container Configuration
      Component Selection
  3. Click Next and set the Fields as you did in the installer when you installed the Siebel Server. This is the same Siebel installer and will use the same values as your Siebel installation.
  4. Exit when the installation is complete.

To install SSH on each Coherence node

  1. Once the Coherence installation completes, go to <Siebel Install Directory>\ses\siebsrvr\BIN.
  2. Find the SSH software installer OpenSSH-Win64-v9.8.1.0.msi and simply double-click it. There will be no installation screens as this is a silent install.
  3. The installer will install and start the SSH Server.
  4. The SSH Server runs as a standard Windows Service.
  5. To verify, press Win + R, type services.msc, and press Enter to open the Services Management Console.
  6. Ensure the following services are running:
    1. OpenSSH SSH Server – the actual SSH server daemon (sshd)
    2. OpenSSH Authentication Agent – manages SSH private keys

Linux typically has SSH software installed and running by default.

Note: Do this for all your Coherence nodes in Windows. Oracle recommends at least three nodes.

Creating the Enterprise Cache server profile

You'll create and deploy on each Coherence node an Enterprise Cache Server Profile. The same values must be applied to every Coherence node. When the profiles are deployed, are written to Zookeeper and compiled into an XML file so that the Coherence server uses them as input to start the cache service. You'll see different sections such as Tango Coherence Override and Cache Configuration.

To create and deploy an Enterprise Cache server profile on each Coherence node

  1. Sign into the Siebel Management Console (SMC).
  2. Go to Profiles.
  3. Create an Enterprise Cache server profile.
  4. Enter the following values and deploy the Enterprise Cache server profile.

    Cache Server Profiles

Tango Coherence override > Well Known Addresses

Profile Field Suggested Value Description
Server Address

IP address for the node hosting the Coherence

The well-known address helps cluster discovery and enables seamless registration of new nodes into the Coherence cluster.
Cluster Name

siebel_cluster

This can be custom, but it must be consistent across all Coherence Nodes so that they join the same cluster.

Cache Configuration > Cache Scheme Map

Profile Field Suggested Value Description
Cache Name

siebelcache

The name for your cache. By default, all components use this name, and all profiles must use the same value. Change it only if you've a good reason to do so.
Scheme Name

distributed

This is the scheme that will define the cache settings.

Cache Configuration > Proxy Scheme

Profile Field Suggested Value Description

Service Name

ExtendTcpProxyService

Default: ExtendTcpProxyService – This is the name for the Coherence service that will handle traffic. Don't change this value.

The extend proxy service (ProxyService) is a cluster service that allows Siebel to access a Coherence cluster.

Maximum Thread Count

75

Default: 75 – This is the amount of Maximum threads Proxy will use. Don't change this value.

This setting enables thread pooling for handling proxy operations.

Minimum Thread Count

10

Default: 10 – This is the minimum number of threads proxy will use. Don't change this value.

This setting enables thread pooling for handling proxy operations.

Cache Server Host

127.0.0.1

This is the local loopback address where the Coherence server is running for this node. Don't change this value.

This must be same for every Coherence node.

Port

7077

The port on which Coherence is running and listening for traffic. You can use any available port.

Auto Start Extended Service

True (checked)

Default: True (checked) – This allows the Coherence service to automatically start. Don't change this value.

Cache Configuration > Scheme Configuration

Profile Field Suggested Value Description

Distributed Scheme

distributed

This value defines how data is stored and retrieved from the Cache. Siebel uses Distributed Cache.

This must match the value in the Scheme Name field from the Cache Configuration section.

Type

Backup Scheme

Default: Backup Scheme – This is Coherence’s way of making sure the data is available either from a disk or (in our case) in memory. Don't change this value.

Service Name

DistributedCache

This is the way Coherence ensures that data will not be blocked from retrieval because of bottlenecks. Don't change this value.

Auto Start Distributed Service

True(checked)

Default: True(checked) – This allows the distributed service to start automatically. Don't change this value.

Backup Scheme Configuration

Local

The name of the scheme that will be defined in the next section. This specifies the name of another scheme to inherit from.

Cache Configuration > Local Scheme Configuration

Profile Field Suggested Value Description

Local Scheme Name

Local

This value defines the scheme for the backup scheme defined earlier. This value must match the one defined earlier.

Eviction Policy

Hybrid

Default value: Hybrid – combines both Least Recently Used (LRU) and Least Frequently Used (LFU) principles to find out which cache entries to evict when the cache is full.

Maximum Cache Size (in MB)

2000

Default value: 2000 – The amount of memory the cache will use before starting to evict data. This is per Cache.

Maximum Cache Size

Siebel recommends setting the maximum cache size to 2 GB per Cache per Coherence Server. To support this, the Coherence JVM should be allocated 6 GB (at a minimum) of heap memory, typically three times the Maximum Cache Size. By default, Java applications allocate about 25% of the total memory. Therefore, we recommend that machines hosting the Coherence server have at least 24 GB (at a minimum) of available RAM. If this isn'tfeasible, ensure the minimum and maximum heap sizes for the Siebel Application Internal are explicitly set to 10 GB and 16 GB, respectively as Coherence is an integral part of Application Internal. If you configure three nodes, the total cache memory is 6 GB.

If two cache instances run on the same cache server, the total primary cache size will be 4 GB (2 GB per instance) per Cache Server/Node. Choose this value carefully based on your requirements, the number of configured caches, and the total available memory to avoid memory-related errors.

With a Maximum cache size of 2 GB, we tested Siebel integrated with the Coherence server under load, using 1,000 different users performing updates on Account Name. The total memory used by Coherence is~400MB.

If you find this cache size insufficient, it can be increased as needed. This change can be made at any time through SMC within the Enterprise Cache Server Profile > Maximum Cache Size, even after the Coherence Server is enabled and running for some time using a rolling restart technique. However, please ensure that your machine has enough resources to support the value you choose. A rolling restart is a Coherence technique for restarting cache servers in a cluster that ensures no cache data is lost during the restart. See the section Sizing for Siebel CRM Tier in the Performance Tuning Guide on Oracle Help Center. For rolling restart, see the section Using Coherence Clusters in the Developing Applications with Oracle Coherence guide on Oracle Help Center.

Advanced Settings

Some customers will have already installed Coherence for other reasons and might've advanced knowledge of the settings they require for their Coherence cache. In these cases, we've provided an Advanced option. When you click this option, you don't have to fill out the individual fields. You might already have a Tango override file to use. In the fields here such as “Tango Configuration XML” and “Cache Configuration XML”, you can simply paste your already created XML. This is a simple way to do this.

Tip: Once you've created and deployed a single Enterprise Cache Server profile, the SMC application writes the entered settings to XML files. The Tango Configuration XML is stored in the custom-override.xml file, and the Cache Configuration XML is stored in custom-cache-config.xml file. Both files found at:<SIEBEL Installation directory>\SES\applicationcontainer_internal\webapps\cgcohconf. You can use the contents of this file to paste into your next Coherence node’s Advanced option.

Deploy the Enterprise Cache Server Profile to your enterprise

To deploy the Coherence Server, In SMC, select Siebel Deployment, then choose Enterprise Cache Server. Fill in the following fields and submit the form.

Deployment Field Suggested Value Description

Host Name: Gateway Port

CoherenceServerName:Gateway port

This is the Coherence Server machine name and Gateway port where the Coherence server will be deployed.

You can find the gateway port in the gateway.properties file for the Value Gateway at <Siebel Installation Directory>\ses\applicationcontainer_internal\webapps.

Profile

Choose your Profile

Action

Deploy

Starts the Coherence Server.

Enterprise Cache Server Agent Node Name

Any Name*

Any name that's self descriptive.

Enterprise Cache Server Agent Description

Any Value*

Any meaningful description.