topic Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment? in ArcGIS Enterprise Questions

Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 19:14:13 GMT

Starting to seriously contemplate better failover. Any using https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-R2-and-2012/hh831698(v=ws.11) in this scenario?

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

BillFox — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 21:04:15 GMT

We set that up a few years ago but have since moved away from it because ArcGIS Server machines would have some fits getting lost from the shared content folder and extra overhead of maintaining all the pieces.

We just eliminated the duplicate machines and doubled the ram/cpu resources in the remaining virtual machines.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

JonathanQuinn — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 21:51:56 GMT

Also be aware that you can't federate an active/active, silo'ed ArcGIS Server environment with Portal.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 10:55:44 GMT

Huh?

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

JonathanQuinn — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 16:29:43 GMT

The active-active architecture, (also known as a silo'ed architecture) described in the link you posted can't be federated with Portal for ArcGIS. You may or may not be interested in federation, but it's an important point for anyone considering that type of deployment.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 17:23:10 GMT

hMMMM

I'm beginning to think this is such a hot idea. I'm not interested in failover per-se, I'm interested in upgrad-at-my leisure: Take one server down, upgrade it, take the other down, upgrade.....but that's not going to work with the data store on a drive share.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

JonathanQuinn — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 21:59:42 GMT

Active/active can definitely help with rolling upgrades, as each machine participates in its own site and you can remove/add them as needed. What do you mean when you mention the data store is on a shared drive? Only the arcgisoutput directory is shared between the sites, and it's fine if one site is upgraded and the other isn't yet.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:10:51 GMT

Where is the documentation that shows what Deployment scenarios—ArcGIS Server (Windows) Installation Guide | ArcGIS Enterprise are not able to be federated?

Would Multiple-machine deployment with ArcGIS Web Adaptor—ArcGIS Server (Windows) Installation Guide | ArcGIS Enterprise allow for bringing one machine in the site down for an upgrade?

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

JonathanQuinn — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 16:31:02 GMT

We plan on updating the documentation you linked with that information. We'll also update it here and here under Disadvantages.

No, a multiple machine site won't support rolling upgrades. In order to maintain availability during an upgrade, you can follow the majority of the steps outlined in the blog about migrating machines using the DR tool:

Migrate to a new machine in ArcGIS Enterprise using the WebGIS DR tool

After step 8, you can upgrade the standby environment to the latest version and when ready, redirect traffic to it. Unfortunately, this does require more hardware and machines to implement, but it's required due to the stateful nature of the software.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

MoginrajMohandas — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 17:11:22 GMT

One potential way for the multi-machine "upgrade at your leisure" requirement, is to unregister each machine and upgrade it at your leisure, and keep doing this(machine after machine) until you reach the last machine. Only when you upgrade that last machine would the site configurations really get upgraded. Post last machine upgrade, you can add all the other machines back.

This is under the assumption that you can afford some period where you have less number of machines(it can be staggered based on an interval that you prefer). Also, you will need to re-import any certificates that were used by each of the machines. This is not ideal, but just a thought since you mentioned upgrading each machine at your leisure.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 14:00:36 GMT

Can you expand on that? Are you saying that if using Multiple-machine deployment with ArcGIS Web Adaptor—ArcGIS Server (Windows) Installation Guide | ArcGIS Enterprise , I can unregister a machine at a time, do my maintenance, but I'm not clear at what point do I (re-create? re-register) the site? It's the last machine step that's confusing. My goal is to have more uptime during maintenance, with performance as a side benefit but not requirements, I'm (hate to say happy but....) with my server performance, the bottleneck is SDE which I don't have the resources to solve (no desire to run a cluster or a mirrored DB farm). Another consideration is out of hundreds of services, only 2 are hosted, with perhaps a 3rd in the distant next 5 years. Everything else is a registered SDE DB. Another philosophical question is there any advantage, in this configuration, to adding a second web adapter and load balancing requests to the WA (which in turn is load balancing requests to the servers), or stick with a single WA and a simple multi-machine site?

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 11:10:30 GMT

Jonathan Quinn‌ are there any updates on getting that documentation updated with what deployment scenarios can't be federated?

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

JonathanQuinn — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 17:02:03 GMT

It hasn't made it in yet, but we're working on it. We plan to add a bullet under the Disadvantages section within the active/active and active/passive help, add it as a note to the Configure a hosting server for your portal section, and the add it to the advantages of multi machine sites here and here.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 19:35:50 GMT

Is there another source of this information? We're needing to make some configuration decisions rather soon.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

JonathanQuinn — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:08:25 GMT

Not that I'm aware of. What other questions do you have when considering active/active or active/passive using the silo architecture vs multi-machine sites?

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 11:55:20 GMT

Of all the possible deployment scenarios, which can't be federated with Ptl?

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

JonathanQuinn — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:46:12 GMT

The only deployment scenarios that can't be federated are the ones that use silo-ed, mirrored environments, (i.e. active/active and active/passive)

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:31:26 GMT

so Multiple-machine deployment with ArcGIS Web Adaptor—ArcGIS Server (Windows) Installation Guide | ArcGIS Enterprise is good for federation then?

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

JonathanQuinn — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:45:09 GMT

Yes, since the federation information is kept within the configuration store, the active/active or active/passive single machine deployment model won't work as each site has their own config-store. Making sure that each site creates the same service which is tied to the same item in Portal, (where the authentication is occurring), is impossible.

The multi-machine site approach, (either using the web adaptor or not), is the only way to set up a highly available/horizontally scaled ArcGIS Server site that is federated with Portal, since all machines are connecting to the same configuration store.

Re: Anyone using IIS/NLB in a multi-machine deployment?

ThomasColson — Fri, 31 Jan 2020 21:48:52 GMT

Which is where I'm headed. I must admit, simply adding two more machines to a site with shared config has increased uptime substantially.