In the real world application of messaging Servers, it is a common requirement to collectively manage a group of Servers from a remote place. 'Managing', entails the management of Server configurations. Every FioranoMQ Server requires a profile from which to boot up. This profile is in effect the configuration with which the Server starts. This Chapter explains the need for profile management of a cluster of messaging servers running at different geographical locations. And, this Chapter explains the solution that Fiorano provides to manage the profiles (the Server configurations) from a remote location.
33.1.1 Profile Management
FioranoMQ comes with a new component called Fiorano Directory Services (FDS) for managing Server configurations/profiles globally. The following subsections describe the use of the Fiorano Directory Services (FDS) and the corresponding profile management services. The default FioranoMQ installation comes with pre-created profiles that are configured to demonstrate certain Server functions. The default FioranoMQ profiles are local a particular instance of the FioranoMQ Server and changes made to that profile are applicable to that instance only.
Thus, when two or more FioranoMQ Servers (from different installations) start with the same profile, their configurations could very well be different (if the profiles have been modified in their respective installations). However, the profiles need to be consistent across several FioranoMQ Server instances. Therefore, the changes applied should be applied globally so as affected all instances. In earlier versions of FioranoMQ, changes made dynamically to the configurations of a Server running on a particular profile could not be propagated to other Servers running on the same profile (albeit on different installations). Once again, the only way to change the configuration (dynamically) of all Servers running on a particular profile would be to modify the configuration of each of the Servers individually. In order to start multiple instances of the FioranoMQ Servers with the same profile configurations there needs to be a central management component which also takes care of propagating any changes made to the messaging Servers in a cluster.
The FDS feature has been introduced to extend the profile configuration and management globally.This feature is used to support certain key enhancements in the current Clustering features. Every instance of FioranoMQ installation supports the profile management using the FDS component. It is therefore possible to run the FioranoMQ Server either with FDS deployed for profile management purposes or without FDS deployed, as a normal FioranoMQ Server for messaging purposes. FDS provides the ability to expose all the attributes of a profile and propagate the changes made to all the Servers using this profile. The following sections gives a detailed description of profile management and various operations such as adding a new customized profile, editing and deleting a profile from FioranoMQ Web Console and so on.
33.1.2 Components / Terminology
As discussed in the earlier section, the FioranoMQ Server has been modified to run as a 'Cluster Manager', which is also known as the 'FioranoMQ Management Server'. A FioranoMQ Server with the FDS component deployed and running is termed as a FioranoMQ Management Server.
The FDS component is deployed only when the server is run with a profile called 'FioranoMQ_ClusterManager'. However, the FioranoMQ Management Server can also be used for messaging purposes.
A FioranoMQ Server without the FDS component is termed as a FioranoMQ Messaging Server.