Antelope Enterprise. Electronic Documents Management System and Workflow Engine

Transcription

1 Antelope Enterprise Electronic Documents Management System and Workflow Engine

2 Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability Edition Information in this document applies to the Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability. Copyright Notice 2013 ASR Software (Hong Kong) Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the written permission of ASR Software (Hong Kong) Limited. ASR Software (Hong Kong) Limited products Information in this document subject to change without notice. Companies, names, and data used in examples herein are fictitious unless otherwise noted.

3 Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability Table of Contents About Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability... 2 Terms... 2 Cluster...2 Cluster Aware Application...2 Failover...2 Load Balancing...2 Node...2 Infrastructure and Networking...3 Servers...3 Workstation...4 Clustering for Antelope Application Server with web engine and cluster aware backend processes...5 Failover based clustering at Antelope Database Server using Microsoft SQL Server cluster services....6 Clustering for file based storage (Antelope Storage Server) using SAN storage with built-in clustering...6 Configuration of Antelope Enterprise v4 on Microsoft Cluster... 7 Antelope Application Server web engine (Active / Active mode or Active / Passive mode)...7 Antelope Application Server backend processes (failover clustering)...8 Resources... 9 MS SQL Clusters...9 MS IIS Cluster (Failover)...9 MS IIS Cluster (Load Balancing)...9 About ASR Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 1

4 About Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability This document describes the Antelope Enterprise options and settings that support redundancy and high availability. See the following sections of specific information: Terms Overview of Antelope and High Availability Configuration of Antelope Enterprise v4 on Microsoft Cluster Terms You should understand these terms before proceeding in this documentation: Cluster More than one resource with exactly same configuration and requirements connected together as single resource to provide redundancy Cluster Aware Application Application with specific alert and process feature that once a node in a cluster is down, it will take corresponding action to avoid data and document lost by shifting the operations to another node in a cluster. Failover A cluster strategy that a node in cluster is down, all processes and operations will shift to another node. Load Balancing A cluster strategy that more than one node in a cluster are online to share massive operations to two or more nodes. Node A server in a cluster environment. An active node is the server which is online and running. A passive node is the server is in standby mode once the active node is down, it will be changed to active and take up the operations. Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 2

5 Overview of Antelope and High Availability It is a must to provide IT systems with maximum availability to users to avoid stopping critical business operations in enterprise. There are many risk factors that influence the availability of a multi-user, network based application. For IT professionals, to understand and examine all factors is the key to propose an optimal proposal for high availability. Below lists some of the major factors that may happen for systems fail to operate. In summary, it can be categorized into three categories:- Infrastructure and Networking Servers Workstations Infrastructure and Networking Area for failure Failure Reasons Suggested Resolution Power supply The building power supply stops accidentally Backup power supply or uninterrupted power supply is required Internal network Failure of gateway, routers, hubs, Setup a backup network structure cabling Fire Electrical equipment may catch fire that affects all computerized system Non-destructive fire suppression systems are required External network Failure of internet access or cross site network Provide a redundant internet access vendors Building Building of the enterprise is affected by natural or non-natural disasters Setup a disaster recovery site in another location in the same city Disaster within a geographical region Natural or non-natural disasters happens within cities Setup a disaster recovery site across cities or regions Servers Area for failure Failure Reasons Suggested Resolution Server Hardware Any hardware component in a server such as CPU or memory or server Provide a cluster environment instead of one server for the system local hard disk, motherboard, stop functioning File Storage Failure of hard disk such as bad Setup RAID or even cluster SAN storage sectors, or whole hard disk broken Database Storage Failure of database system because Provide cluster database environment Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 3

6 Software or services of database system bugs Failure of software or services from running because of system bugs Software vendors should provide cluster supported applications Install server-side alert application such that s or sms messages provided to IT support once software malfunctions Workstation Area for failure Failure Reasons Suggested Resolution Workstation Hardware Any hardware component in a workstation such as CPU or memory Prepare cold standby backup workstation or server local hard disk, motherboard, stop functioning Workstation Software Software or operating system fails operate suddenly Prepare OS level image ready to recover the whole workstation environment Other devices Failure of operation for other devices such as scanners or printers Provide enough backup devices Antelope Enterprise is designed for large scale of operation. To ensure high availability, two major strategies are adopted: Load balancing spreading tasks across multiple servers. Clustering building in redundancy by implementing a failover strategy. Antelope Enterprise is a cluster compatible application. It supports clustering at different levels, including Clustering for Antelope Application Server with web engine and cluster aware backend processes. Failover based clustering at Antelope Database Server using Microsoft SQL Server cluster services. Clustering for file based storage (Antelope Storage Server) using SAN storage with built in clustering. Antelope Enterprise Application Server Antelope Enterprise Database Server Antelope Enterprise Storage Server Antelope Enterprise architecture with cluster compatibility Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 4

7 Clustering for Antelope Application Server with web engine and cluster aware backend processes Antelope Application Server contains two major levels web application engine and backend processes. Web application engine, which is based on Microsoft Internet Information Services, support load balance clustering. Antelope backend processes are running in Microsoft servers, support failover clustering. These two Antelope application levels are directly connected with Antelope Database server (MS SQL) and Antelope Storage server (clustered SAN storage), that means, all Antelope Server data are stored in MS SQL database server, while images and documents are stored in storage server with SAN devices. It is realized that when connected with Antelope Database Server which supports failover clustering, switching from primary server to backup secondary server, is not instantaneous and may actually take several seconds or more. Before the secondary server takes control over the primary server, the Antelope Application Server backend processes will receive a message from secondary server and stop all operations. Antelope Application Server will resume its actions until message received from backup server once online. During the down period, Antelope Application Server backend processes will be alert of the situation. For Antelope Application Server web engine, the failover process is not transparent because all in-process information, such as database lookup, retrieval of indexes, open file actions, upload documents to Antelope Server, may become invalid during the failover. Antelope Application Server - Load balance clustering web engine - failover clustering backend processes Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Primary Secondary Antelope Database Server Clustered MS SQL Server Antelope Storage Server Clustered File Server Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 5

8 Failover based clustering at Antelope Database Server using Microsoft SQL Server cluster services. All Antelope information, including folder structure, document indexes, user access permission are stored in the Antelope Database Server. Antelope Database Server supports MS SQL clustering by failover, that is, the secondary server acts as a hot standby server. Clustering for file based storage (Antelope Storage Server) using SAN storage with built-in clustering Images and documents in Antelope Enterprise are stored in Antelope Storage Server. It is a file-based storage with AES 256-bit encryption. It is highly recommended to use SAN storage with built-in clustering feature for Antelope Storage Server. Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 6

9 Configuration of Antelope Enterprise v4 on Microsoft Cluster Antelope Application Server web engine (Active / Active mode or Active / Passive mode) Antelope Application Server depends on Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) for setting the cluster, therefore to configure clustering, it relies on the Microsoft World Wide Web Publishing Services This section divides into two sections, configure the Antelope Application Server web engine in Active / Passive mode (Failover), and configure the Antelope Application Server web engine in Active / Active mode (Load Balancing) Configure the Antelope Application Server web engine in Active / Passive mode (Failover) Step 1 Application Server Installation On all cluster s nodes, install the Antelope Application Server web engine by selecting the Standard Install option in the installer. Follow the setup wizard and complete the process. Configure the output folder path and database path to clustered file storage server (Antelope Storage Server) and clustered database server (Antelope Database Server). Configure clustered file storage server is the same as configure local file storage, except that the path is set as \\<server>\<share folder name>. Read the installation guide of Antelope Enterprise v4 on how to configure the Contentbase path and database path. Step 2 Configure IIS World Wide Web Publishing Service failover cluster The failover cluster is configured based on Microsoft IIS World Wide Web Publishing Service. Follow below link on ( on how to configure. Step 3 Bring the cluster group online Right-click on the cluster group and select Bring online. Wait until the application server has started, then verify that you can access the system by pointing a web browser to : Server Name]/service.asmx Configure the Antelope Application Server web engine in Active / Active mode (Load Balancing) Step 1 Application Server Installation On all cluster s nodes, install the Web Capture / Scan component by selecting the Standard Install option in the installer. Follow the setup wizard and complete the process. Configure the output folder path and database log path to clustered file storage server and clustered database server. Configure clustered file storage server is the same as configure local file storage, except that the path is set as \\<server>\<share folder name>. Read the installation guide of Antelope Enterprise v4 on how to configure the Contentbase path and database path. Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 7

10 Step 2 Configure IIS World Wide Web Publishing Service load balancing cluster The load balancing cluster is configured based on Microsoft IIS World Wide Web Publishing Service. Follow below link on ( ) on how to configure. Step 3 Bring the cluster group online Right-click on the cluster group and select Bring online. Wait until the application server has started, then verify that you can access the system by pointing a web browser to : Server Name]/service.asmx Antelope Application Server backend processes (failover clustering) Step 1 Application Server Installation On one of the cluster s nodes, install the Antelope Application Server backend processes by selecting the Standard Install option in the installer. Follow the setup wizard and complete the process of defining templates in the system. Step 2 Connect the system over to a clustered external database for log (optional) The system needs to be configured the log to use a clustered external database as the database will be shared between the instances of the application server. Follow the installation guide for how to connect to external database. The database may be hosted on another system, or inside a cluster. Step 3 Setup of 2 nd Node Repeat steps 1 and 2 on the second cluster node. Step 4 Decouple service management from the nodes By default the Antelope Application Server backend processes is installed under the management of the node. It needs to be managed inside the cluster, so the service's start-up type should be set to manual. On each node navigate to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services locate all services names start with DMS. Stop the service and set its start-up type to Manual. Repeat this on both nodes. Step 5 Add Antelope Application Server service as a resource under the cluster group 1. Open the Failover Cluster Manager. 2. Right-click on the cluster group hosting the spooler service and select Add a resource -> 4 - Generic Service. 3. In the new resource wizard, select all names start with DMS and click Next. 4. Click Next at Confirmation. 5. Click Finish at Summary. 6. Right click on the Octopus Server and click Properties. On the Antelope Application Server Properties page ensure the Use Network Name for computer name option is checked. Click Ok. Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 8

11 7. Right click on the Antelope Application Server and click Bring this resource online Step 6 Bring the cluster group online Right-click on the cluster group and select Bring online. Wait until the Antelope Application server has started, then verify that one of the nodes has Antelope Application Server running, while another node has Antelope Application Server stopped. Resources MS SQL Clusters MS IIS Cluster (Failover) MS IIS Cluster (Load Balancing) Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 9

12 About ASR The group is established since 2002, we are leader in Greater China, focusing in ECM and CRM solutions including transactional content capture, imaging, enterprise content management, record management, e-forms, collaboration, workflow automation and customer management solutions. Our suite of hardware, software, and professional support accelerates business processes transforming manual processes into accurate, highly automated systems that deliver information to your business applications. We offer best of breed hardware, software, and value-add services focused on: Data Capture Solutions: Document Imaging, Advanced Document Recognition, OCR Data Extraction, Electronic Forms Management Enterprise Content Management: Document Management, Records Management, Line of Business Integration Data Hosting: Hosting of documents and database in our company data center Business Process Automation: Graphical Workflow Solutions, Reporting, Notification, Versioning, Audit Tracking Web Content Management: Website Restructure, Content Management Customer Management Solution: Sales Force Automation, Contact Management, Customer Support Management, Leave Management You can make your office do more... Work with ASR and automate your business! ASR Software Professional Services ASR offers unique professionals to provide optimization and support services on imaging and document management solutions. To learn more: Visit For further information, please see how to contact us at: Antelope Enterprise v4 High Availability 10