We need your feedback and prompt assistance on the following issue: standalone ArcGIS Image Server 10 at cluster server couldn't communicate with remote ArcGIS Server (9.3/ 9.3.1/10); and ArcCatalog 10 couldn't manage GIS services of remote ArcGIS Server 10 (Linux).
Question description: A cluster server (Windows Server 2008 R2) is built, which is consisted of two physical servers (active and passive) using a virtual host name (saying IT-IS100). This virtual and clustered server shares cluster resources like Drive M, N, K, or many SAN storages. Both ArcGIS 10 and Standalone ArcGIS Image Server 10 are installed in one of clustered resources (saying Drive M).
Standalone ArcGIS Image Server can be started with this virtual & clustered host name IT-IS100 (using default port: 3982 and 3983).
Through this virtual & cluster host name IT-IS100, we remotely used the Image Service Editor in ArcGIS 10 to create some image services, also build some mosaic datasets with ArcGIS 10 ...
Also, we successfully published all those image services with standalone ArcGIS Image Server 10 at cluster server; then they are applied on security (image services) and assigned onto remote users to connect. Users and remote desktop ArcGIS (9.3/ 9.3.1/ 10) can access those image services...
The failover also works, when one of physical server is down, and another up. In other word, always one server is active with the virtual name IT-IS100.
So far, all look fine and work well!
However, when we recently take the following further actions, no lucks at all:
2. when remote ArcGIS Server 10 with Image extension (Linux) tried to add or register with this standalone ArcGIS Image Server 10, it fails.
3. when we tried to publish mosaic datasets from this new cluster server to remote ArcGIS Server 10 with image extension (Linux), it fails. In fact, we couldn't add remote ArcGIS Server 10 within ArcCatalog to manage services. [Please note that we can add remote ArcGIS Server 10 from this cluster server to use GIS services. ]
With aids from IT guys, we found out that the port 3982 is not listening at all within this cluster server , but the port 3983 listening. IT fellows did some checks, including firewall (off), opening the port 3982 to all applications, etc. After many tries, finally, they have a feeling that standalone ArcGIS Image Server 10 may have some unknown issues in cluster server environment, which cause this kind of communication problem between cluster server and remote ArcGIS Server ...
[For sure, it should be responding, when either Inbound or Outbound stream is trying to communicate with this server. In fact, in our current standalone ArcGIS Image Server 9.3/9.3.1 in Non-cluster server, the port 3982 is working fine, so that ArcGIS Server 9.3/9.3.1 can register /unregister with it easily.]
Questions:
1. Any advices on installation and configuration of both ArcGIS 10 and standalone ArcGIS Image Server 10 in a cluster server, in order to support both remote ArcGIS Server 9.3/9.3.1 and ArcGIS Server 10 with Image extension?
2. Any advices on installation and configuration of ArcGIS Server 10 with Image extension at this cluster server, in order to directly publish mosaic datsets onto local ArcGIS Server as image services?
Just be informed that we have implemented a cluster server infrastructure (a little different from conventional cluster server, which is mainly focusing on 'Ethernet SAN Drives share/transfer' between two nodes after failover) for ArcGIS Image Server 10 to support Mosaic Dataset model and manage massive SAN storages as well.
So, our ArcGIS Image Server 10 at cluster can manage ArcGIS Server 10 with Image extension to support load balancing & failover, even though ArcGIS Server does not automatically support the cluster installation. In other word, as long as massive SAN storages at cluster resources can be automatically transfered via Cluster Manager from one active node to another after failover, ArcGIS Server with Image extension can be installed easily just like standalone installation in Windows Server 2008.
During the configuration, however, we should pay attention to the following:
Within Failover Cluster Manager in either node, both ArcGIS Server Object Manager & ArcGIS SOC Monitor must be managed into Other Resources as well. In this way, the system will ensure all image services working fine after failover, when clients access via a virtual cluster host (IP). Otherwise, all those image services in one node (which are visible) will be invisible in another node after failover, except that ArcGIS SOC Monitor is manually re-started.
++++++++++++ SAN storages look just like local hard disks (Drive N, Drive M, ...), which are managed as cluster resources in cluster server. Link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_area_network for the details.
NAS storages shared over network onto nodes without managing them as cluster resources in cluster server. So far, on our tests, with NAS storage, too slow & poor performance are showed in the following two cases: 1. creation of mosaic dataset (with local datum) from raw bundle of images (with UTM/WGS84) like GeoEye-1, IKONOS, QuickBird, etc; 2. access of image services (published from mosaic datasets with overviews), in particular, one mosaic dataset with thousands of vertices in footprint.
