Set up a cluster of Transformers

You can define two or more Transformers as a cluster. Here’s how to do this.

For more about clustering, see Transformer Clustering features and concepts.

Clustering Transformers without the Caplin Deployment Framework

Here’s an example of how to configure a Transformer cluster when you’re not using the Deployment Framework. Here we’ve assumed there are just two Transformers in the cluster, but the same approach applies when you’re clustering more.

Config for the first Transformer in the cluster:

transformer.conf
add-module cluster
cluster.conf
cluster-index 0
heartbeat-time        5
heartbeat-slack-time  1.5

add-cluster-node
   cluster-addr <First-Transformers-network-interface-address>
   cluster-port <First-Transformers-network-port-number>
end-cluster-node

add-cluster-node
   cluster-addr <Second-Transformers-network-interface-address>
   cluster-port <Second-Transformers-network-port-number>
end-cluster-node

Config for the second Transformer in the cluster:

transformer.conf
add-module cluster
cluster.conf
cluster-index 1
heartbeat-time        5
heartbeat-slack-time  1.5

add-cluster-node
   cluster-addr <First-Transformers-network-interface-address>
   cluster-port <First-Transformers-network-port-number>
end-cluster-node

add-cluster-node
   cluster-addr <Second-Transformers-network-interface-address>
   cluster-port <Second-Transformers-network-port-number>
end-cluster-node

Here’s an explanation of the configuration items that we’ve used:

  • cluster-index: Uniquely identifies this Transformer in the cluster. Make sure each Transformer in the cluster has a different cluster-index in its configuration file; in this example, the first Transformer has cluster-index 0 and the second has cluster-index 1.

    Index numbers must start at 0 and correspond to the order of the add-cluster-node items in the configuration file.

  • heartbeat-time is the time in seconds between each cluster heartbeat. The Transformers forming a cluster exchange heartbeat messages at regular intervals, allowing each of them to check that all the others are still present, and take appropriate action if one doesn’t respond.

  • heartbeat-slack-time: When this Transformer doesn’t receive an expected cluster heartbeat from another Transformer in the cluster, it waits heartbeat-slack-time seconds before disconnecting from the cluster and trying to reconnect to it.

  • add-cluster-node: Each add-cluster-node item defines a Transformer in the cluster by its network interface address and port number. You define all the Transformers in the cluster through a set of add-cluster-node items. The set must be in ascending order of the Transformers' cluster-index values. You put the add-cluster-node items in the configuration of every Transformer in the cluster, so each Transformer identifies every node in the cluster, including itself. You can see that in this example, each of the two Transformers' configurations contains the same set of two add-cluster-node items.

Clustering Transformers in the Caplin Deployment Framework

The Caplin Deployment Framework, allows you to easily define a two-Transformer cluster for failover purposes. To enable failover, see How can I…​ Set up server failover capability in the Deployment Framework pages. You set up some configuration macro definitions in the <Framework-root>/global-config/environment.conf file on the primary and secondary server machines.

  • To change the heartbeat-time, add the macro definition TRANSFORMER_CLUSTER_HEARTBEAT_TIME to <Framework-root>/global-config/environment.conf

    define TRANSFORMER_CLUSTER_HEARTBEAT_TIME <new value>

  • To change the heartbeat-slack-time from its default, define a value in <Framework-root>/global_config/overrides/servers/Transformer/etc/cluster.conf

    heartbeat-slack-time <new-value>

  • To change the cluster-addr settings in the add-cluster-node configuration entries:

    The configuration macros TRANSFORMER${THIS_LEG}_HOST and TRANSFORMER${OTHER_LEG}_HOST specify the cluster-addr values. (These macros are defined in <Framework-root>/global_config/hosts-defns.conf)

    You normally use the ./dfw hosts command to set up the hostnames in the macros. See Configuring server hostnames in How can I…​ Set up server failover capability and Change server hostnames in How can I …​ Change server-specific configuration.

    Also see Deployment Framework Configuration macros and items.

    If you want to set the cluster-addr values directly, edit them in <Framework-root>/global_config/overrides/servers/Transformer/etc/cluster.conf

  • To change the cluster-port settings in the add-cluster-node configuration entries, put new values for the configuration macros TRANSFORMER${THIS_LEG}_CLUSTER_PORT and TRANSFORMER${OTHER_LEG}_CLUSTER_PORT in the <Framework-root>/global_config/overrides/servers/Transformer/etc/cluster.conf file.

    For example:

    define TRANSFORMER${THIS_LEG}_CLUSTER_PORT   ${THIS_LEG}6003
define TRANSFORMER${OTHER_LEG}_CLUSTER_PORT  ${OTHER_LEG}6003

    where the value 6003 is the new base port number, replacing the default value 6001.

If you want to set up a cluster of more than two Transformers within the Deployment Framework, please contact Caplin Support for advice on how to do this.

See also: