Essbase Failover Prerequisites

At least two Essbase server machines (hosts) are required for a failover setup. Although more than two hosts can be established, in this documentation we will refer to Host 1 and Host 2.

Host 1 will be the primary node and will have all services not clustered (such as AdminServer and optionally EAS Lite). Host 2 will be the secondary node and will only run Essbase.

1. Create a directory in a shared network drive that is accessible to both the nodes for storing the Essbase <Applications Directory>. If you do not know where <Application Directory> is, see Environment Locations in the Essbase Platform for details. This directory will be used when Essbase is configured on Host 1. The mounted path should be the same on both the hosts.

   For example, if /nfs/essbase_data is mounted on /u01/essbase_data in Host 1, then it should be mounted in the same path, /u01/essbase_data in Host 2 as well.

   Note:

   Universal/Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) paths are not supported on Windows for the <Application Directory> in a failover setup.
2. Install Essbase on every node.
   • Each node in the cluster must have the same <ORACLE_HOME> directory path; but this path should not be a shared directory.
   • The installation Operating System user name should be the same on each node.
   • Each node should have its own oraInventory.
3. Configure Essbase, only on Host 1.
   • Important: during the configuration on Host 1, specify the shared directory (created in step 2) as the <Application Directory>.
   • Record the following information during Host 1 configuration:
     • Domain Location
     • Domain Name
     • NodeManager port
     • AdminServer port
     • Managed Server port
   • Important: do not configure Essbase on Host 2. By default, the installation takes you next to the Essbase configuration screen. Cancel and exit the tool for Host 2.
4. Install an http server or load balancer for managing the nodes. In this topic, we will assume it is running on Host 1, although it must only be available via the network to the two hosts. If you don’t have an http server or load balancer, you can follow steps to install Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) and configure Oracle HTTP Server.
5. If the primary node is enabled for TLS (SSL), then complete the TLS configuration on the primary node before configuring the failover node.
   1. Set up Weblogic TLS Connection for Essbase.

      java -cp $ORACLE_HOME/essbase/lib/essbaseconfig.jar com.oracle.wizard.operation.helper.ssl.SslConfigHelper [RESPONSE_FILE=<response file> | DOMAIN_HOME=<${DOMAIN_HOME}>]

   2. Configure TLS for Essbase failover using the TLS Configuration Utility.

      The SAN property in tls_tools.properties should have OHS, primary node, and failover node IP address and DNS entries.

      Example:

      SAN=IP:10.x.x.11,IP:10.x.x.13,IP:10.x.x.17,DNS:myhost,DNS:myhost.example.com
      certCA=
      certFile=

   3. In EPM deployments only, EPM WebLogic Server should be stopped before failover configuration and started after failover configuration.

Note:

If you plan to set up a failover environment, and you are using EPM Shared Services for authentication, then you must install EPM 11g Services to a shared network location accessible by all the Essbase nodes. If this is not possible, you can install only the EPM Foundation component locally in each Essbase node, but pointing to the same EPM Schema. Each Essbase node must be able to find the EPM_ORACLE_HOME and EPM_ORACLE_INSTANCE locations associated with your EPM installation.