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Best Practices for a Multi-Server Environment

A multi-server environment involves two or more servers running simultaneously with a shared database and shared folders. This page describes best practices when deploying a multi-server Transact cluster.

Database

  • Install MSSQL or MySQL on a server that will not be a processing or UI server. This minimizes running processes, utilized RAM, and network requests sent to this server.
  • Run a second server which hosts the redundant databases for Transact. This will minimize single points of failure in case of hardware or OS issues.
  • Set up weekly database backups. Transact must be stopped for backups to occur.

SharedFolders

  • Install SharedFolders on a machine separate from any of the processing or UI servers. This is to minimize network requests to the server and drive hosting SharedFolders.
  • Set up weekly backups of SharedFolders. Transact must be stopped for backups to occur.
  • If possible, RAID (redundant array of independent disks) storage is recommended.

Workflows and Configurations

  • Email import should run on a UI server to minimize CPU utilization and network traffic to the processing servers. This will help processing servers focus on the Transact workflow.
  • Schedule the clean error job to stagger across each server. This can help prevent deadlocks which may occur if this executes simultaneously on multiple servers. To do so:
    1. Open the dcma-workflows.properties file, located at [Ephesoft_Directory]\WEB-INF\classes\META-INF\.
    2. Locate the dcma.clean.error.job.cronjob.expression property.
    3. Set the value to be offset for each server. This can vary depending on your business needs. For help creating cron expressions, refer to CronJob Expressions.
      The following is an example of staggering this value across three servers:

        • Server 1: 0 0/30 * ? * * 
        • Server 2: 0 5/30 * ? * *
        • Server 3: 0 15/30 * ? * *
  • Depending on your version of Transact, you may need to adjust your pickup settings to maximize batch pickup and processing across servers. Refer to Pickup Service for more information.