BBSON bulletin board

WebSphere® Virtual Enterprise Version 6.1.1 offers a new bulletin board service overly network (BBSON) that is independent of the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment high availability manager. The high available manager provides a mechanism that allows servers to easily exchange state data. This mechanism is commonly referred to as the bulletin board.

Overview

The high availability manager bulletin board in WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment is the default bulletin board for WebSphere Virtual Enterprise Version 6.1.1. If your environment does not depend on the high availability manager, you might want to consider enabling BBSON instead. The advantage of enabling BBSON is that it alleviates the dependency on the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment high availability manager. The other benefit of using BBSON is that it removes the time-intensive requirement of constructing and managing core groups and bridges. You can use BBSON for new cells that are not bridged to any existing environments. For configuration information on the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment high availability manager, see Setting up a high availability environment. in the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment information center.

Enabling BBSON does not explicitly disable the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment high availability manager bulletin board. It is currently available for WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment components which require it, unless you have disabled the high availability manager.

Considerations for using BBSON

Typically, a cell with 50 or more Java Virtual Machines necessitates core group configuration and bridging. If you anticipate your cell to increase to 50 or more Java Virtual Machines, and do not have or do not anticipate having other components that need the high availability function, then the recommendation is to enable BBSON. If your intention is to keep your cell as a 50 JVM cell, then the overhead of performing a full cold cell restart (See the following Restrictions section) to switch to BBSON is probably not optimal. Also, if you have a WebSphere Virtual Enterprise Version 6.1.0.5 working with an existing high availability manager configuration, it is not necessary or more beneficial to use the BBSON.

How to enable BBSON

To enable BBSON, run the useWVEBB.py script for each WebSphere Virtual Enterprise cell in your environment after installation is complete. See useWVEBB.py script for more information.

Troubleshooting

For problem diagnosis and debugging purposes, use the manageWVEBB.py script to collect BBSON state dumps from every process in the product cell. See manageWVEBB.py script for more information.

Restrictions

The following restrictions apply when considering using BBSON:
  • Do not use BBSON if your environment contains multiple cells that are bridged together, regardless of whether the cells have WebSphere Virtual Enterprise or what levels of WebSphere Virtual Enterprise exist. Currently, BBSON cannot bridge cells.
  • After running the useWVEBB.py script, you must perform a full cold start of the entire cell for BBSON to be enabled.
  • Do not use BBSON if you have previous versions of WebSphere Virtual Enterprise in the same cell. BBSON is not compatible with prior versions.

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