redirect Admin host

[JamiseBondi]

Hi all,

I have two admin servers and would like to take one offline but appear to users to still be online. Lets says admin1 and admin2 are the servers. Each admin server has local TM1 instances running on them. Can I take admin2 offline (along with the TM1 data servers) and then any clients trying to connect to admin2 using architect/perspectives end up getting redirected back to admin1 along with the local TM1 instances running on admin1? I've seen this before but not sure where the config is done. Many thanks.

regards,
Jamise

[asutcliffe]

Hi all,

I have two admin servers and would like to take one offline but appear to users to still be online. Lets says admin1 and admin2 are the servers. Each admin server has local TM1 instances running on them. Can I take admin2 offline (along with the TM1 data servers) and then any clients trying to connect to admin2 using architect/perspectives end up getting redirected back to admin1 along with the local TM1 instances running on admin1? I've seen this before but not sure where the config is done. Many thanks.

regards,
Jamise

Hi James,

I'm not sure what you mean by "take one offline but appear to users to still be online". Are you wanting to get rid of admin2 and the associated servers altogether and have everyone use admin1 and it's associated servers? And you want this to happen without having to change each user's admin host setting?

If so, you might be able to achieve this is to amend the DNS record for admin2 so that it resolves to admin1 though I'm not sure this is the best approach. Perhaps you could provide us a bit more detail about your current setup and what you're trying to achieve?

[JamiseBondi]

Hi asutcliffe,

I'm actually looking at an installation right now where this has been done and trying to understand how it has been done. So admin1 and it's associated servers (call them tm1.1, tm1.2, tm1.3 are online and accessible. Admin2 with its associated servers were online until maintenance needed to be done. Now admin2 is offline meaning that the TM1 admin service has been stopped along with the associated servers running on admin2 (call them tm2.1, tm2.2, tm2.3). Now when I use architect to connect to admin2 (knowing the service has been stopped as I've checked this on admin2) I can connect (using architect) to what appears to be admin2 with its associated servers but in actual fact its admin1. Because we can't rename the top node, all admin hosts say "TM1" so it appears to be admin2 but it's actually admin1. When I open a server on admin1 (say tm1.1) and change a rule and save and then connect to to admin2 and connect to the same server (they're identically named so tm1.1 (sales) actually has the same name as tm2.1 (Sales) on admin2, tm1.2 (HR) is also HR on tm2.2...) I can see the same rule change so I'm actually connecting to the same tm1 server but via what appears to be a different admin host.
I've checked DNS, they're using different host names. The host file is also not being used to do this redirection....
So how do I manage to use architect to connect to admin1 or admin2 and end up accessing the same tm1 servers (cause admin2 isn't running the TM1 admin service...)

[JamiseBondi]

edit: Sorry, I mean their DNS names are resolving to different IP addresses so there's no round robin happening...

[asutcliffe]

What is your admin host set to in the client? Is it "admin2" or is something like "admin2; admin1"?

[JamiseBondi]

admin2
nothing else (no semi colon plus another host...)

[lotsaram]

Hi all,

I have two admin servers and would like to take one offline but appear to users to still be online. Lets says admin1 and admin2 are the servers. Each admin server has local TM1 instances running on them. Can I take admin2 offline (along with the TM1 data servers) and then any clients trying to connect to admin2 using architect/perspectives end up getting redirected back to admin1 along with the local TM1 instances running on admin1? I've seen this before but not sure where the config is done. Many thanks.

regards,
Jamise

Just to be clear what you are saying (and in your response as well) makes no sense at all and it doesn't seem that you are clear on whether you mean the TM1 admin host service or you are talking about the physical server that the admin host and/or TM1 database servers are running on.

For simplicity lets just say that you have 2 physical servers A and B. Each server is running a TM1 admin service plus 3 TM1 database servers.
On server A there are TM1 servers A1, A2, A3
On server B there are TM1 servers B1, B2, B3

If for each TM1 database server the entry in the tm1s.cfg file for the adminhost parameter is either simply "localhost" or "A" on server A and "B" on server B then the following would happen...
For a user with admin host = "A" in their TM1 Perspectives/Architect settings would see in server explorer:
TM1
- A1
- A2
- A3

For a user with admin host = "B" in their TM1 Perspectives/Architect settings would see in server explorer:
TM1
- B1
- B2
- B3

And a user with admin host = "A;B" in their TM1 Perspectives/Architect settings would see in server explorer:
TM1
- A1
- A2
- A3
- B1
- B2
- B3

If either A or B physical server is down then none of the TM1 database servers running on that machine will be visible or available.

However a TM1 database server does not have to be registered with a TM1 admin service running on the same local machine and can be registered with multiple admin hosts via the settign in the configuration file. If the tm1s.cfg setting for each TM1 database server regardless of which physical machine was set as adminhost=A;B
Then on the client side regardless whether the client admin host setting was "A", "B" or "A;B" then the user would always see the following in server explorer
TM1
- A1
- A2
- A3
- B1
- B2
- B3

Note the same caveat still holds that if the physical server where the TM1 database is running is unavailable then the respective TM1 database(s) will also be not visible/not available. Therefore in this example if server A is down then users will see only :
TM1
- B1
- B2
- B3

Point is if the TM1 database server is not running then it's not running and not available and there's no way you can make it appear available.

Note also that for any TM1 server running on the same local machine as its admin service has a dependence on the admin service. If the admin service is terminated then any TM1 databases will also stop! (Note this does not apply to TM1 databases that have a remote admin host only with no local admin host)

I'm sure its all clear as mud but I hope that has been a little bit helpful.

[JamiseBondi]

Hi Lotaram,

Thanks for the summary and I agree and follow your line of thought. Let me just point out what I'm actually witnessing in a production environment (I'm not dreaming this up )

admin host A has TM1 servers A1 A2 A3.
admin host B has exactly the same named instances as admin host A so A1 A2 A3 (this is so that work can be promoted to a different environment for further testing without having to adjust any code or templates - they're identically named environments just with a different admin host name).

So when I connect architect to admin host A I see TM1 server A1, A2, A3 as you point out.
When I connect architect to admin host B (only B, no semi colons....) I see A1, A2, A3 (there's no way to tell which TM1 servers these are as the top node is simply "TM1" but going to File...Options confirms that I'm connected to admin host B...

If I use RDP and logon to admin host B I notice that the TM1 admin service has been stopped, along with it the TM1 servers that were running on admin host B, so no TM1 servers are running on host B and neither is the TM1 admin service....

If I make a change to a rule on TM1 server A1 while using admin host A, I can connect up to admin host B and open up the TM1 server A1 and see the same rule change... so this tells me that somehow I'm actually connecting to admin host A (even though I'm entering in admin host B in architect (File...Options...))

Hence my question, how is this redirection possible if it's not being accomplished via DNS or a hosts file. I know it sounds like hogwash but I stumbled on it when trying to connect to two different environments and realised it was pointing back to the same environment. Hope you follow my logic here? Thanks.

[asutcliffe]

(they're identically named so tm1.1 (sales) actually has the same name as tm2.1 (Sales) on admin2, tm1.2 (HR) is also HR on tm2.2...)

What I was getting at was that if the client has a list of two admin servers specified, you will see a list of all the tm1 servers registered with those admin servers - as lotsaram points out. However if both admin servers have a tm1 server called "Sales" registered to it, you will only see "Sales" once. You will be able to login to the "Sales" server but it won't be obvious which instance of "Sales" you're logged into.

In my limited testing of this, if both instances of "Sales" are up, you will be interacting with the instance registered to the admin host listed first in the client settings, although this might just have been a coincidence when I looked at it. Of course if only one instance of "Sales" is running and registered to a running admin host process, you'll be logged into that one. I thought this might explain what you're seeing.

admin2
nothing else (no semi colon plus another host...)

That said, given what you've said above, this isn't what you're seeing.

[JamiseBondi]

Hi asutcliffe,

just to clear up what I meant by
"admin2
nothing else (no semi colon plus another host...)"

I meant that when I change architect to connect to admin host 2, I don't have any semicolons and I therefore don't have multiple admin hosts specified. Sorry, it's a bit ambiguous the way it was written above.

The questions still stands, I'm able to connect to admin host 2 (by putting in admin host 2 in the File...options dialog box) using architect even when it's admin service is not running, and I end up getting the TM1 servers that are running under admin host 1. When I logon to admin host 2 using RDP and I use architect to logon to itself, I see that there are no TM1 servers registered or running - this is what I'd expect but it doesn't explain why from any client on the network, I can connect to admin host 2 but end up getting redirected back to admin host 1. I thought there may have been a config that would enable this behaviour but it appears it unusual behaviour? Will have to keep digging...

[asutcliffe]

You're not using Citrix are you? It sounds a bit like this - http://www.tm1forum.com/viewtopic.php?p=31847.

[JamiseBondi]

you're right, it's the same behaviour as that guy had with citrix but no I'm not using citrix. I'm RDP'ing directly onto a Dev box (so it's actually a terminal server/ remote desktop services server) and using architect/perspectives on that Dev server (incidentally this Dev box is admin server 1 in our example) and in architect I point it to use the local admin host or I can point it to admin host 2 (or other admin hosts in the environment for that matter).

[lotsaram]

Have a look at this thread for a good tip for using a "dummy server" to see which admin host is being used.

And this is the best technique I have found for managing migrations in a DQP setup with no need for any find/replace in any objects.

[JamiseBondi]

Just an update to fill in the blanks. I've figured out what happened and thought it'd be interesting to some guys out there

I was logging onto an admin host (also a terminal server/remote desktop services server) and using architect on that server to connect to the TM1 data servers. Each tier (Dev, QA and Prod) have identically named TM1 data servers so I couldn't tell which TM1 servers I was logging onto (I've since realised that the path to the data folder is another way of knowing what I'm logged onto). Turns out, if I used the Dev server to open architect to connect to QA or Prod admin hosts that instance was down on those QA or Prod admin hosts then you'll still see the local TM1 server instance instead so you could end up with some local instances and some remote instances in the same view (and because they're identically named this can be confusing as to which instance you're actually connected to). The fix: check the data path in server explorer (assuming you've named the paths differently in the three tiers eg c:\TM1Prod\instance1data\...). Hope this helps the next person out.