1. Douglas Potter IBI Minneapolis User Group November 2008
Cluster Load Manager 101
Douglas Potter
IBI Minneapolis
User Group November 2008

2. What is Cluster Load Manager?
CLM is an intelligent, autonomic server that provides automatic monitoring, management, and load distribution across a group or cluster of Reporting Servers.
CLM is
Self-Aware – It knows what resources it has available, and how these resources are functioning
Self-Healing – It utilizes its awareness to correct problems in the delivery of service
Self-Optimizing – It is continuously adjusting its resources to keep within the limits of performance needed
Highly Available – It is, itself, a distributed, redundant service.

3. That sounds cool, but… What does that really mean?
CLM provides a Reporting Server environment that is
Highly Available
Multiple Reporting Servers avoid single point of failure due to server resource limits, hardware failure, etc.
Highly Scalable
Can add servers as needed (within license limits) to meet demand
Easily Managed
Single screen shows the status of all servers in the cluster .

4. How is CLM different from other options ?
WebFOCUS Alternate Servers
Older, simpler cluster mechanism
No proactive monitoring of Reporting Servers
Non-intelligent distribution of requests
Other 3rd party workload distributers (F5, Cisco, etc.)
Can monitor for system failure
Don’t monitor Reporting Server statistics
Limited intelligence in the distribution of requests
OS level clustering
Can protect against system failure
Does not monitor Reporting Server statistics
None of these adjust the Reporting Server environment to meet SLAs

5. Request processing

6. Where do I configure that in the Client?
As of 7.6.7, you can configure the CLM nodes in the GUI

7. Do I have CLM? Where is it installed in my environment?
It is a licensed component that can be installed independent of any other WebFOCUS software.
Recommended to (ideally) be installed on its own machine, or with the WebFOCUS Client, but not on the Reporting Server machines.
For business critical systems, implement CLM Failover.

8. What does this get me?
■ Lower total cost of ownership
■ Higher system up-time
■ Less human expertise needed
■ More uniform response time
■ More insight into system operations

9. Any Questions?