You can use IBM® WebSphere® DataPower® XC10 Appliance to
store data from your WebSphere Application
Server dynamic
cache. By setting up this capability, you can enable applications
that are written with the Dynamic Cache API or applications using
container-level caching (such as servlets) to use the features and
performance capabilities of the appliance.
Before you begin
- You must install the WebSphere eXtreme
Scale Client in
your WebSphere Application
Server configuration. See Installing WebSphere eXtreme Scale Client for more information.
- If your appliance has transport layer security enabled, or you
want to ensure that clients use transport layer security, you must
also enable global security in the WebSphere Application
Server administrative
console. See Configuring Transport Layer Security (TLS) for more information.
About this task
When you configure the dynamic cache provider in
WebSphere Application
Server to use
DataPower XC10
Appliance, the cache data
is stored outside of the
WebSphere Application
Server topology.
All the cache data is stored in the appliance. The memory that was
being used for caching in your application servers can be used for
other purposes.
For information about using
WebSphere eXtreme
Scale Client and
DataPower XC10
Appliance dynamic cache data
grids with IBM WebSphere Commerce, see the following topics
in the IBM WebSphere Commerce documentation:
Procedure
- Specify the catalog service that is running on the appliance
in WebSphere Application
Server. The catalog
service enables the WebSphere Application
Server dynamic
cache configuration to communicate with the DataPower XC10
Appliance. You can configure
the catalog service in the WebSphere Application
Server administrative
console by creating a catalog service domain. See Creating catalog service domains in WebSphere Application Server for more information.
- Create the data grid on the DataPower XC10
Appliance and configure the
required security settings. You can either run the dynaCfgToAppliance script
or create the configuration manually.
- Creating the data grid configuration with the dynaCfgToAppliance script:
- This script gets installed in the bin directory
of the deployment manager profile when you install the WebSphere eXtreme
Scale Client. Before you run this
script, verify that both the appliance and the deployment manager
are running:
dynaCfgToAppliance <IP_address> <cache_name> <appliance_admin> <admin_pw> <SOAP_port> <soap.client.props>
- IP_address
- Specifies the IP address of the DataPower XC10
Appliance on which you want
to store your dynamic cache data.
- cache_name
- Specifies the JNDI name of the dynamic cache. If there are any
slashes (/) in the JNDI name of the dynamic cache, the slashes
are converted to a dash for the name of the data grid in the DataPower XC10
Appliance. For example, if
the dynamic cache name is services/cache1, the data grid
that is created on the appliance is named services-cache1.
The following characters cannot be used in the name of the data grid
in the DataPower XC10
Appliance: ^ . \\ / , # $ @ : ; \ * ? <
> | = + & % [ ] " ".
- appliance_admin
- Specifies the administrator ID for logging in to the DataPower XC10
Appliance user interface.
- admin_pw
- Specifies the administrator password for logging in to the DataPower XC10
Appliance user interface.
- SOAP_port
- (Optional) Specifies the SOAP port for the deployment manager
if you are using a port number other than the default of 8879.
- soap.client.props
- (Optional) Specifies the path to the soap.client.props file.
You must specify this file if you have enabled security in WebSphere Application
Server. This file enables SOAP security
and specifies the user name and password to administer the WebSphere Application
Server deployment manager:
com.ibm.SOAP.securityEnabled=true
com.ibm.SOAP.loginUserid=
com.ibm.SOAP.loginPassword=
See SOAP connector and Inter-Process Communications connector
properties files for more information about the soap.client.props file.
This script creates the data grid on the appliance.
The script also sets the DataPower XC10
Appliance specific
ID and password credentials that you specified with the appliance_admin and admin_pw parameters
with the following custom properties: - xc10.<data_grid_name>.userid
- xc10.<data_grid_name>.password
These property names are not case sensitive. The password value
is encoded. If you run the script again after the initial configuration,
the custom properties are updated.
- Manually creating the data grid configuration:
- Create the dynamic cache data grid in the DataPower XC10
Appliance user interface.
Click . The name of the cache must match
the JNDI name of the dynamic cache in the WebSphere Application
Server configuration. When you enter
the JNDI name replace any slashes (/) with a dash for the
name of the data grid in the DataPower XC10
Appliance. For example, if
the dynamic cache name is services/cache1, enter the name
as services-cache1.
- Create the xc10.<data_grid_name>.userid
and xc10.<data_grid_name>.password custom properties
on the WebSphere Application
Server cell. The value
of the <data_grid_name> in each custom property
is the JNDI name of the data grid, replacing any slashes (/)
with dashes. For example, with the previous example, the custom property
names are xc10.services-cache1.userid and xc10.services-cache1.password.
The values should be set to a user ID and password that can access
the data grid in the DataPower XC10
Appliance configuration.
You can encode the password by using the encodePassword script,
which is in the bin directory of the deployment
manager.
- Complete the configuration for your version of WebSphere Application
Server. Create a cache
instance that you want to configure with DataPower XC10
Appliance. The name of this
cache instance must be the same as the value that you provided for
the cache_name parameter in the dynaCfgToAppliance script.
You can also configure the baseCache instance. However, if you use
the baseCache instance, you must create the following custom properties
on the Java virtual machine
(JVM). When you configure the baseCache instance, all of the cache
instances in the JVM also have the properties set. You can override
the values of the baseCache custom properties by creating custom properties
on the individual cache instances. See the following links for more
information about creating cache instances:
To create a custom property on the cache instance
in the WebSphere Application
Server administrative
console, click .
For WebSphere Application
Server Version 7.0:
- Enable the DataPower XC10
Appliance as
the dynamic cache provider.
Select the WebSphere eXtreme
Scale dynamic cache provider in
the administrative console. For more information, see Selecting a cache service provider
- Configure the replication setting for the cache.
You can enable cache replication in the WebSphere Application
Server Version 7.0 administrative
console. See Configuring cache replication for more information.
- Set the topology custom property on the cache instance
that you want to modify. Specify the name of the custom
property as com.ibm.websphere.xs.dynacache.topology and
the value of the custom property as remote.
For WebSphere Application
Server Version
6.1:
- Enable the DataPower XC10
Appliance as
the dynamic cache provider.
Configure the dynamic cache
provider for a cache instance by setting the com.ibm.ws.cache.CacheConfig.cacheProviderName
custom property on the cache instance. To set the provider to use
the DataPower XC10
Appliance, set the
value to com.ibm.ws.objectgrid.dynacache.CacheProviderImpl.
If
you need to set the provider back to the default WebSphere Application
Server dynamic cache provider for
a specific cache instance, you can set the name of the custom property
to default. If you are configuring the baseCache
instance to use the DataPower XC10
Appliance cache
provider, you might need to set the property to default on
your other cache instances if you want them to use the default cache
provider.
- Configure the replication setting for the cache.
You must also create a replication domain. You can configure
the replication domain with the administrative console or a custom
property:
- Administrative console: See Replicating data with a multi-broker replication
domain for more information.
- Custom property: You can also use the com.ibm.ws.cache.CacheConfig.enableCacheReplication
custom property on the cache instance to force the cache to report
that it is a replicated cache, even though a replication domain has
not been assigned. Specify the name of the custom property as com.ibm.ws.cache.CacheConfig.enableCacheReplication and
the value of the custom property as true.
- Set the topology custom property on the cache instance
that you want to modify. Specify the name of the custom
property as com.ibm.websphere.xs.dynacache.topology and
the value of the custom property as remote.
Results
By configuring the dynamic cache service to use the appliance
as the cache provider, less memory is used by your application servers.
All the cache data is offloaded to the appliance and is no longer
stored in application server memory.
What to do next
- Configure security before you begin to send data to the data grid.
See Securing data grids for more information.
- Configure replicas. Replicas ensure that your data grid data is
available if the primary copy fails. To configure replicas, click . Replicas
are created only when the appliance is in a collective. If the number
of appliances in the collective is n, the maximum
number of replicas is n-1. Therefore if you configure
three replicas, but you only have two appliances in the collective,
only one replica is created. Additional replicas are created if you
add appliances to the collective. Set the number of replicas to the
ideal amount that you want to have, so that as appliances join the
collective, new replicas can be created. The data grid content is
cleared when you edit the number of replicas.
- Configure a capacity limit for the data grid.
By configuring capacity limits on the data grid, you can ensure that
the storage capacity for the collective is used in a predictable manner.
See Configuring the maximum capacity of a data grid for more information.
- You can monitor your dynamic cache data grid in the DataPower XC10
Appliance user interface. See Monitoring data grids in the user interface for more information.