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Cluster Management

To ensure high availability or perform load balancing when a large number of concurrent users (excess of 800) use BI Hub, multiple instances of BI Hub agents are required. Two or more instances of the same agent type can be clustered together and they point to the same BI platform.

For example, two Tableau agents are created to form a cluster and these two agents point to the same Tableau platform. If one agent fails, the load will be taken by another instance, thus ensuring high availability. Similarly, if a large number of BI Hub concurrent users launch Tableau reports, these two agents perform load balancing. Tying up the two agents to form an agent cluster is accomplished using the BI Hub cluster manager. This BI Hub agent cluster interacts with the cluster/load balancer already set up in the enterprise to handle load balancing/high availability. The details entered during BI Hub cluster set up such as URL, Port, etc., is based on the configuration of the Load Balancer used in the enterprise.

warning

To create a Cluster, the agents should not have any users mapped to them. Or in other words, you can only create clusters on one or more newly created instances.

Create a Cluster#

  1. Configure the nginx conf file to include the instances to be clustered and the cluster port number.

  • Go to the Server location C:\nginx-1.14.2\nginx-1.15.12\conf, and open the nginx.conf file.

  • In the http section, enter the instances <url>:<port number> to be clustered.

    nginx.conf
    http {
    upstream cluster {
    server solutionsdevtest.product.solutions:13414;
    server solutionsdevtest.product.solutions:13417;
    }
    upstream cluster1 {
    server solutionsdevtest.product.solutions:12601;
    server solutionsdevtest.product.solutions:12602;
    server solutionsdevtest.product.solutions:12603;
    }
    }

  • In the server section, give the port number for the Cluster in the same sequence as that of the Instance port number. This port number is used in the BI Hub "Add Cluster" form.

    nginx.conf
    server {
    listen 13415; //Cluster port number
    server_name localhost;
    #charset koi8-r;
    #access_log logs/host.access.log main;
    location / {
    proxy_pass http://cluster;
    }
    #error_page 404 /404.html;

The "proxy_pass" name and upstream function name should be the same.

Save and close the nginx.conf file.

  1. In the nginx directory C:\nginx-1.14.2\nginx-1.15.12. Click nginx.exe, go to File > Open command prompt > Open command prompt as administrator.
#For config changes done while nginx is stopped
C:\nginx-1.14.2\nginx-1.15.12>start nginx
#For config changes done while nginx is running
C:\nginx-1.14.2\nginx-1.15.12>nginx -s reload

✅ You have successfully added the instance clusters in the backend.

  1. In BI Hub, go to Agent Manager > Cluster Manager screen, click Add Cluster.

    wAdd a Cluster

    Add a Cluster

  • Enter Name, URL, Port (Cluster port number entered in the nginx.conf file), and Type.

    • Click on the Type drop-down list to select the agent, and click Add clusters.
    • Select a minimum of 2 Agent clusters on the left and click Save.
    Enter Cluster details

    Enter Cluster details

  • Click Submit.

    QlikView instances Cluster created

    QlikView instances Cluster created

✅ You have created a cluster of 2 QlikView instances.