[opencms-dev] 3xOpenCMS sharing one Database, yes or no ?

Thu Sep 12 09:34:09 CEST 2013

Thanks for the comments,

@Hernan, the current setup is 1 Apache acting as load balancer on top of 3 Jboss, who share a same database instance. In this setup the Apache server does not handle any static content, everything is served by the JBoss instances.

So changing the role of the Apache server, from balancer to web server, and using one together with each JBoss to serve the exported content sounds good. We will have to decide what to export to begin with.

@Arash, thanks for suggesting a HAProxy as balancer instead of Apache. That rounds the setup. So, it could be something like:

1xVarnish (optional) <- 1xHAProxy <- 3x(Apache<-JBoss)(Tomcat recommended) <- 1xDatabase

How about the shared database instance? Is it safe to use it without OCEE for a site that generates every single page dynamically (at the moment, because it clearly is unnecessary to regenerate every page everytime, since they are constant, though this would be also solved by the varnish cache)? The performance hit could be related to be using specifically Oracle combined with the fact that 3 jboss are accessing the same instance?

@Marc, Hi. In other projects we have used extensively the static export feature in the way you describe. In my experience the weight of each rsync operation depends on the OpenCMS version too (of course, the volume and frequency of publishing matters most, and it seems that case is a big one). But earlier versions used to export everything every time, thus causing that rsync synced all the export folder every time. >From version 7.5 and above (that I know) it has given to me good results, being an incremental relatively weightless syncing. I think this would be optimal in any case in which there is only dynamic page generation through templates (exportable), not based on user input or other “runtime” variables, or also using a cache like varnish, as mentioned above.

Thanks,

Jose

De: opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org [mailto:opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org] En nombre de Marc Johnson
Enviado el: jueves, 12 de septiembre de 2013 3:29
Para: The OpenCms mailing list
Asunto: Re: [opencms-dev] 3xOpenCMS sharing one Database, yes or no ?

Used to work in a place where opencms was the content mgmt running a site with many hundreds of pages.  It was heavily customized and integrated with a lot of other technology, but we had apache on machines in datacenters in both the east and west coast and a we did a publish to a server here in the midwest and synced the content out to the servers every ten minutes or something in cron with rsync.

the caveat is that our heavy customization meant that all the dynamic content was built out statically to the server in the midwest when we published and that's what got synced out to the apache servers. So tomcat was for the workplace users to make content changes and to view what they'd look like internally but when published it all became static content and our dynamicness was all ajax including a lot of xslt not backend technology.  

One problem we had is that we ran the rsync in cron (every 5 or 10 minutes and the whole directory was taking right up to the end to get through meaning that the rsync was running perpetually and would sometimes overlap which wasn't acceptable), 

we made those rsync scripts cover smaller and smaller portions of the doc root so they'd consistently get done in the time limit but it got to be a bit of headache if you multiply setting up 6 servers per coast times x scripts per server in cron.

At some point after I left they may've gotten that going on demand versus in cron and they were also working on getting an addition to the db to track and run through anything that'd change in the publishing queue.

  _____  

From: Arash Kaffamanesh <ak at cloudssky.com>
To: The OpenCms mailing list <opencms-dev at opencms.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 1:38 PM
Subject: Re: [opencms-dev] 3xOpenCMS sharing one Database, yes or no ?

Hi Jose,

1 Apache + 1 JBoss or Tomcat per node and HAProxy in front might be the right solution.

In genral static export could be a good solution if you don't have any dynamic content elements / apps  and server your content statically.
If you would need only static content , you can have only one workplace and sync your static content to your multiple JBoss Portal nodes and use any loadbalancing technics such as HAProxy. If you don't need JBoss Portal, then use Tomcat.

But if you have any dynamic content / apps, then you have to use OCEE or some other cluster ready technologies such as OCCX (Metamesh's OpenCms Cloud eXtensions), which we are going to present on OpenCms Days in 3 weeks.

Kind Regards,

Arash

Visit us at OpenCms Days Conference (free tickes available) <http://www.cloudssky.com/en/events/opencms-days-2013.html> 
CloudSites empowered by Metamesh's OpenCms Cloud eXtensions (OCCX <http://cloudssky.com/en/cloud_products/cloudsites.html> )

____________________________     

Arash Kaffamanesh
Clouds Sky GmbH

Im Mediapark 4C

50760 Köln

+49 221 379 90 680
www.cloudssky.com <http://www.cloudssky.com/> 
____________________________

On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 5:43 PM, Jose Ignacio Yarza <jiyarza at opensistemas.com> wrote:

Thank you for your comments Hernan.

I agree with using Varnish or Nginx, that is a first aid that will improve things a bit.

When you say:

"We got much better results using 1 APACHE /JBOSS per box and not a 3 to 1

combination."...

You mean you got better results with a standard setup (1 Apache + 1 JBoss/Opencms + 1 database) than with @subject, or anything else?

Regards,
Jose

-----Mensaje original-----
De: opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org [mailto:opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org] En nombre de HERNAN - TFSLA
Enviado el: miércoles, 11 de septiembre de 2013 14:28
Para: opencms-dev at opencms.org

Asunto: Re: [opencms-dev] 3xOpenCMS sharing one Database, yes or no ?

Hi Jose,

I assuming you already go trough Flexcache fine tuning, so, I think the
answer you are looking is IT DEPENDS. If you have a static site with very
low publication frequency (a couple a day) static option is certainly the
best option. Complement that with Varnish or Nginx and you will never see a
performance issue again.

If you have a very dynamic site (comments, login, counters, personalization,
etc) OR a high publication frequency the Flexcache will not be enough and
you will be needing OCEE Accelerator or some sort of cache.

That said, we typically used both, parts of the site are static and part
dynamic. We generate some of the HTML blocks calling the jsp from a cron on
the RFS and the consume it using Ajax.

Another couple of things. We experimented with the scenario you described.
We got much better results using 1 APACHE /JBOSS per box and not a 3 to 1
combination. That said, we also got MUCH MUCH better results with Tomcat7
than Jboss.

I hope that helps.

jiyarza wrote:
>
> Excuse me for the triple post, but I wanted to link another recent post
> with
> good info, in the same thread from Stephan Hartmann:
>
>
>
> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.cms.opencms.devel/38170
>
>
>
> If all this does relate with the setup at hand, and none has anything to
> add, I’d take it as official for me: Either OCEE or static export.
>
>
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
> De: opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org
> [mailto:opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org]
> En nombre de Jose Ignacio Yarza
> Enviado el: miércoles, 11 de septiembre de 2013 11:22
> Para: 'The OpenCms mailing list'
> Asunto: Re: [opencms-dev] 3xOpenCMS sharing one Database, yes or no ?
>
>
>
> Excerpt from here:
>
>
>
> http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.cms.opencms.devel/38158
>
>
>
> Achim Westermann wrote this a month ago:
>
>
>
> “(…)My current company spent again
>
> and again and again and again and again efforts to circumvent buying
>
> ocee. We set up cronjobs to delete static export files on slave servers
>
> (which costs additional performance), I - as a former OpenCms developer
>
> with some insight on the internals - coded a jsp to flush the caches on
>
> the slave instances. And on a weekly turn someone passes by to let me
>
> request that special jsp to have the cache flushed. And then they tried
>
> to deactivate the OpenCms cache and ran into performance issues. Putting
>
> an external cache in front of a clustered OpenCms will even get you
>
> deeper into the mud.
>
> And then some editor did forget or not know (as they were new to our
>
> company) that an OpenCms cluster slave will not know about changes
>
> witout ocee. Did not contact me and had troubles because changes were
>
> not propagated. And again and again and again and again and again and
>
> again I keep on manually flushing the cache on the slave cluster servers
>
> if some editor knew that we had this "cluster - issue".
>
> Sum up: Those 3500 bucks spent on ocee cluster... we already lost a lot
>
> more of money to circumvent buying that. And we will never achieve a
>
> better solution because Alkacon did work on that for many years and
>
> constantly is fixing bugs concerning ocee cluster. This is not a fanboi
>
> advertisement. It's just my opinion: You will never save money by trying
>
> to implement your own OpenCms cluster. The only thing you will achieve
>
> is to increase your level of maintenance and time to web.
>
> In case you don't know what problems will arise when running OpenCms in
>
> a cluster without ocee feel free to answer.
>
> “
>
>
>
> What Achim says, which I can completely identify with, would be aligned
> with
> the official word?
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
>
>
> De: opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org
> [mailto:opencms-dev-bounces at opencms.org]
> En nombre de Jose Ignacio Yarza
> Enviado el: miércoles, 11 de septiembre de 2013 11:13
> Para: 'The OpenCms mailing list'
> Asunto: [opencms-dev] 3xOpenCMS sharing one Database, yes or no ?
>
>
>
> Hi List,
>
>
>
>
>
> This is an important issue that I would like to share with and if possible
> get from you some valuable and informed feedback.
>
>
>
> We have setup in a production environment three opencms (8.5) instances
> over
> three independent JBoss (not clustered), sharing one same Oracle (11g)
> database. There is an Apache web server balancig between the three JBoss
> instances. This environment is read-only, there is not content management
> concurrency, only dynamic page generation for a website.
>
>
>
> The issue is that there is a performance degradation that does not happen
> in
> our other single-instance environments, which are setup in the standard
> way
> (named development and test).
>
>
>
> I know about the potential problems with the data access parts managed
> inside the three JBoss instances, where we'd find three different
> connection
> pools, Solr indexes not in sync, flex cache,...
>
>
>
> Question: So, Is it an affordable task to tune up this setup and make it
> work fine? Do we need OCEE? Is the pain worth it being a read only
> environment? Wouldn't be a much better solution, in this read-only
> scenario,
> using static export altogether?
>
>
>
> I know this is a recurrent matter,  and have read good information but
> also
> some divagation about it. I have my own opinion (go static), but it seems
> not enough for politicians, that’s why I am asking here. Any official
> advice
> on the overall idea is also very welcome. Thank you for your suggestions.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Jose Ignacio Yarza
>
> Open Sistemas
>
> Tel: 649 157 537
>
>
>
> logo_open
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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