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Fabric Manager Server federation provides scalability and easy manageability of data and programs running within the federation. A federation of Fabric Manager Servers include several functional units such as Fabric Manager Server, embedded web servers, database, and Fabric Manager Client accesses the servers. Three stages in the deployment cycle include planning for deployment, installing the federated servers and managing the federated servers.
This chapter contains the following sections:
•Installing the Federated Servers
•Managing Federated Servers with Fabric Manager Client
•Managing Federated Servers with Fabric Manager Web Client
To design a solution, including determining the structure, capabilities, and architecture for a site, you might want information that helps you to structure the server topology, plan authentication methods, determine which capabilities of Server Federation you want to take advantage of, and that helps you to plan for those capabilities and to tailor the solution to your organization's requirements.
When planning for a federated environment, consider the following factors:
•Geographic locations of the data centers that are participating in the federation.
•Total number of ports or end devices for all the existing and potential fabrics in each data center (to determine the workload).
•The Fabric Manager should be placed close to the fabrics it manages in order to reduce the latency in SNMP request and response.
•One Fabric Manager will be able to manage 150,000 ports.
•Dedicate one separate physical server for the database.
•Dedicate one separate physical server for each Fabric Manager Server in the federation.
During this stage, you configure your environment, install Federated Servers, and then start operating and managing sites. Depending on your environment and your solution, you may have several configuration steps to perform for your servers.
If you choose PostgreSQL as your database, you can set up the database using the install wizard when installing the first server in the federation. You should use the database URL and DBA user and password that was created when you installed the first server when adding new servers to the federation.
You need to install the database first. Although it supports both PostgreSQL and Oracle XE, you should install and use Oracle Enterprise version.
Note All the servers in the federation must be using the database installed by the first server in the federation. The database information is available in the server properties file.
Note For more information on configuring Oracle database for Fabric Manager Server in a federation, see Installing Fabric Manager Server section in Cisco Fabric Manager Fundamentals Guide.
After you install the first Fabric Manager Server, you can configure all the subsequent installations to join the existing server federation. You can install only ten servers in a federation.
To install Fabric Manager Server on Windows, follow these steps:
Step 1 Click the Install Management Software link on your desktop.
Step 2 Choose Management Software > Cisco Fabric Manager.
Step 3 Click the Installing Fabric Manager link.
Step 4 Click the FM Installer link.
You see the welcome message in the Cisco Fabric Manager Installer window shown in Figure 2-1.
Figure 2-1 Welcome to the Management Software Setup Wizard
Step 5 Click the Custom radio button, and then click Next to begin the installation.
Step 6 Check the I accept the terms of the License Agreement check box, and then click Next.
You see the Install Options dialog box shown in Figure 2-2.
Figure 2-2 Install Options Dialog Box
Step 7 Click Fabric Manager Server (Licensed) to install the server components for Fabric Manager Server.
•Check the Add server to an existing federation check box to add the server into an existing federation.
Note Verify that the Fabric Manager Server hostname entry exists on the DNS server, unless the Fabric Manager Server is configured to bind to a specific interface during installation.
Note You may need to add the following line in the pg-hba.conf file under # IPv4 local connections in order to allow remote hosts to connect to PostgreSQL database:
host all all 0.0.0.0/0 md5
After adding, save the configuration file, restart the PostgreSQL database before you install the second server node.
Note If you are joining more then three Fabric Manager Servers in a federation, you need to use an Oracle database with the following settings.
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>sqlplus /nolog
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Production on Wed Jan 6 17:19:32 2010
Copyright (c) 1982, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.
SQL> connect / as sysdba;
Connected.
SQL> alter system set processes=100 scope=spfile;
System altered.
SQL> alter system set open_cursors=500 scope=spfile;
System altered.
SQL> shutdown immediately;
SP2-0717: illegal SHUTDOWN option
SQL> shutdown immediate;
Database closed.
Database dismounted.
ORACLE instance shut down.
SQL> startup;
ORACLE instance started.
Total System Global Area 805306368 bytes
Fixed Size 1453836 bytes
Variable Size 218714356 bytes
Database Buffers 583008256 bytes
Redo Buffers 2129920 bytes
Database mounted.
Database opened.
SQL> show parameter processes;
Total System Global Area 805306368 bytes
Fixed Size 1453836 bytes
Variable Size 218714356 bytes
Database Buffers 583008256 bytes
Redo Buffers 2129920 bytes
Database mounted.
Database opened.
SQL> show parameter processes;
NAME TYPE VALUE
------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------
aq_tm_processes integer 0
db_writer_processes integer 4
gcs_server_processes integer 0
job_queue_processes integer 4
log_archive_max_processes integer 2
processes integer 100
Step 8 Select an installation folder on your workstation for Fabric Manager.
On Windows, the default location is C:\Program Files\Cisco Systems\MDS 9000. On a UNIX (Solaris or Linux) machine, the installation path name is /usr/local/cisco_mds9000 or $HOME/cisco_mds9000, depending on the permissions of the user doing the installation.
Step 9 Click Next.
You see the Database Options dialog box shown in Figure 2-3.
Figure 2-3 Database Options Dialog Box
Step 10 Click either the Install PostgreSQL radio button or the Use existing DB radio button to specify which database you want to use.
Note If you choose to install PostgreSQL, you must disable any security software you are running because PostgreSQL may not install certain folders or users.
Note If you had installed the database separately, click the Use existing database radio button and enter the credentials of the database that you installed in the previous step.
Note Before you install PostgreSQL, remove the cygwin/bin from your environment variable path if Cygwin is running on your system.
Step 11 If you select Use existing DB, click either the either Install PostgreSQL radio button or the Use existing DB radio button.
Step 12 Click Next in the Database Options dialog box.
You see the User Options dialog box shown in Figure 2-4.
Figure 2-4 User Options Dialog Box
Step 13 Enter a user name and password and click Next.
You see the Authentication Options dialog box shown in Figure 2-5.
Figure 2-5 Authentication Options Dialog Box
Step 14 Choose an authentication mode (Local, RADIUS, TACACS or MDS) and click Next.
Note When the MDS radio button is selected, the FM authentication uses the user database in the switch for authentication.
Step 15 Click Verify to test your login.
You see the Configuration Options dialog box for Fabric Manager as shown in Figure 2-6.
Figure 2-6 Configuration Options Dialog Box for Fabric Manager
Step 16 Check the FC Alias and SNMPv3 check boxes as desired and click Install if you are installing Fabric Manager.
You see the Configuration Options dialog box for Fabric Manager Server shown in Figure 2-7.
Figure 2-7 Configuration Options Dialog Box for Fabric Manager Server
Step 17 Select the local interface and web server port or Fabric Manager server port. You can change the Fabric Manager Server port number to a port that is not used by any other application. If you check the Use HTTPS Web Server check box, the Web Server Port field is grayed out and the default port is 443.
Step 18 Check the FC Alias and SNMPv3 check boxes as desired.
Step 19 Click Install if you are installing Fabric Manager Server. You see the installation progress in the Cisco Fabric Manager Installer window as shown in Figure 2-8.
Note You should verify that the Fabric Manager Server hostname entry exists on the DNS server, unless the Fabric Manager Server is configured to bind to a specific interface during installation.
Note If you select a specific IP address during installation and change the server host IP address, you must modify the following two files that are all located in the $INSTALL/conf directory. Change server.bindaddrs to the new IP address in the server.properties file and change wrapper.app.parameter.4 to the new IP address in the FMServer.conf file.
Figure 2-8 Progress of Installation
Once the installation is finished, you see an installation completed message in the Cisco Fabric Manager Installer window shown in Figure 2-9.
Figure 2-9 Install Complete
Note You can choose to launch Fabric Manager or Device Manager by checking the Launch Fabric Manager or Launch Device Manager check boxes. Icons for Fabric Manager and Device Manager are automatically created on the desktop.
Step 20 Click Finish to close the Cisco Fabric Manager Installer window.
Step 1 Double-click the Fabric Manager icon to launch Fabric Manager.
You see the Fabric Manager Login dialog box shown inFigure 2-10.
Figure 2-10 Fabric Manager Server Login Dialog Box
Step 2 Enter the Fabric Manager Server user name and password.
Step 3 Check the Use SNMP Proxy check box if you want Fabric Manager Client to communicate with Fabric Manager Server through a TCP-based proxy server.
Step 4 Click Login. Once you successfully log in to Fabric Manager Server, you can set the seed switch and open the fabrics that you are entitled to access.
You see the control panel as shown in Figure 2-11.
Figure 2-11 Control Panel - Open Tab
Step 5 Click Open to open a selected fabric.
To open the fabric on a different server follow these steps:
Step 1 Choose Server > Admin.
You see the Control Panel as shown in Figure 2-12.
Figure 2-12 Control Panel
Step 2 Click Discover.
You see the Discover New Fabric dialog box as shown in Figure 2-13.
Figure 2-13 Discover new Fabric
Step 3 In the Seed Switch list box, enter the IP Address of the seed switch.
Step 4 In the User Name field, enter the user name.
Step 5 In the password field, enter the password.
Step 6 From the Auth-Privacy drop-down list, choose the privacy protocol you want to apply.
Step 7 To open the selected fabric in a different server, select the server ID from the Server drop-down list.
Step 8 Click Discover.
Note You may receive an error message when you discover a fabric in a federation while another Fabric Manager Server is joining the federation. You can discover the fabric on after the installation or upgradation is complete.
To view all the sessions in a federation, follow these steps:
Step 1 Choose Server > Admin.
Step 2 Click the Connected Clients tab.
You see the Control Panel as shown inFigure 2-14.
Figure 2-14 Connected Clients
To view all the servers in a federation follow these steps:
Step 1 Choose Server > Admin.
Step 2 Click Servers tab.
You see the Control Panel as shown in Figure 2-15
Figure 2-15 Servers
To start managing fabrics using Fabric Manager Web Client, follow these steps:
Step 1 Click the Admin tab, and then click Configure.
Step 2 Click Fabrics in the left navigation pane.
You see the list of fabrics (if any) managed by Fabric Manager Server in the Opened column as shown in Figure 2-16.
Figure 2-16 List of Fabrics
Step 3 Click Add.
You see the Add Fabric dialog box as shown in Figure 2-17.
Figure 2-17 Add Fabric
Step 4 Enter the fabric seed switch IP address for this fabric.
Step 5 Enter the user name and password for this fabric.
Step 6 (Optional) Check the SNMPV3 check box.
Step 7 Select the privacy settings from the Auth-Privacy listbox.
Step 8 Click Add to begin managing this fabric.