Site Deployment Services Rapid Install, Config and Troubleshooting

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Introduction

Site Deployment Services is a Documentum product that allows content to be easily
replicated to multiple websites and databases. It is one of the more complicated Documentum
products to install and configure and it can take a lot of time to wade through the documentation
to get to the point where data can actually be replicated. Once you have a basic working deployment, however,
it is easy to use it as an example to create a deployment that meets your specific needs. This
article describes just the steps needed to get a basic content and database replication deployment working
as well as some common problems you may encounter during the installation. This article assumes an install
of SDS 5.3 on a Windows 2003 Server machine.

Servers Needed for Install

To get a basic SDS install working, you need a minimum of four machines. Note: these
are for the SDS portion only and assumes you already have a docbase setup with appropriate WDK apps,
docapps, etc. The SDS machines needed are:

  • SDS Master Tuner – Server that hosts the channels that all other boxes will subscribe to
  • SDS Base Tuner – Server that handles transmission and deployment of content
  • SCS Target Site – Server that contains the SDS source content
  • SDS Target Site – Server that will receive the transmitted content

Install Tuners

Install the SDS Tuner software on the four machines. Make sure the master package is
installed on the machine that will be the master tuner. Install the base package on the other three
machines. Install according to install guide instructions. The install is straight forward. Just take
the defaults.

Site Deployment Services Rapid Install, Config and Troubleshooting

You may get errors if you use Remote Desktop/Terminal Services to perform
the install. It may be best to perform the installs and tuner configurations
directly on the servers in question.

Site Deployment Services Rapid Install, Config and Troubleshooting

Once the tuner is installed, you may see multiple popup errors: “cannot
connect to host: connection refused connect”. Just dismiss these popups, close the tuner (right click on icon
in system tray and exit), and restart tuner (start->program files->documentum->SDS).

Copy and Subscribe Channels

At this point, the Marimba Tuner admin UI should be displayed on each box. Expand the
Marimba Products tab and you will see the channels that are already installed.

sds-tuner-thumb


Figure 1:
Tuner Admin (Click to Enlarge)

Site Deployment Services Rapid Install, Config and Troubleshooting

You may not see the Marimba Products tab by default. Select Channel menu and Show
Internal Channels if this is the case.

The master tuner will have more channels than the base installs. Now you need to copy the files to the master
tuner that are in the SDS_5.3_Channels.exe package. Do this on the Master Tuner machine. CD to the SDS base
install directory and issue the following command replacing [file_name] with the base name
of the .car file for each of the .car files in the package (except InfrastructureAdministration.car):

  • runchannel https://localhost:5282/ChannelCopier -src [full path to file_name].car
    -dst https://localhost:5282/[file_name]

Now that you have the channels installed, you should be able to subscribe to them. Using
the Tuner Admin UI on each box, select the browse options and enter the hostname of your master tuner on port 5282.

sds-browse-thumb


Figure 2:
Tuner Browse (Click to Enlarge)

Select the following channels on each machine:

  • SCS Target – Content Replicator and Deployment Service Channel
  • SDS Base Tuner – Deployment Manager Command Line, Deployment Manager, Deployment Service and Transmitter
  • SDS Target(s) – Content Replicator and Deployment Service

On the SDS_Base_Tuner machine, right click on the Deployment Manager channel and select start if it is not running.
You should now be able to login by hitting https://SDSBaseTuner:8000. Login as admin (blank password). This
is where deployment options are setup. The easiest way to setup a deployment is to first run the scripts and
then modify the entries to meet your deployment needs.

Run the Content Replication Script

Extract the sample scripts to a temporary directory on the SDS Base Tuner machine and copy setup.bat to
the SDS_install path (default is C:Program FilesDocumentumSDS). Open setup.bat in a text editor and change the
following lines:

  • set INSTALL_DIR=C:Program FilesDocumentumSDS
  • set PUBLISH_MACHINE=SCS_Target:7717
  • set CONTENT_DIR=(full path to content you want to replicate on SCS target)
  • set WEBFARM1=SDS_Target:7717
  • set TARGET_DIR=(full path to where you want replicated content to live on SDS target)
  • set TXHOST=SDS_Base_Tuner:5282
  • set CHANNELHOST=SDS_Master_Tuner:5282

Save the script and run it. Now log back into https://SDSBaseTuner:8000. You should see entries created
by the script. On the Control and Monitoring tab, check the publish job and start. This should copy the source
that you specified to the target.

Site Deployment Services Rapid Install, Config and Troubleshooting

The script may report the following error: “Error: cannot create a object with
unknown extended type ‘rep’.” This happens because the content replication type is not available. Unsubscribe the
Deployment Manager Command Line and Deployment Manager from the Base Tuner and subscribe it on the SCS Target box.
Copy the setup.bat to the SCS Target box and rerun. Remember if you do this, you will now have to login to
https://scstarget:8000.

Run the Database Replication Script

Note: The sample DB replication script will also setup content copy and synch the jobs to run together.

Site Deployment Services Rapid Install, Config and Troubleshooting

Before you run the database replication script, make sure you have installed the propDB SCS components
on the SDS_Target box. You can do this during the SDS install or you can run the SCS Target installer with the -p flag. Make sure
you specify the -p flag. Do not do a full SCS install on the SDS_Target box.

  • SCSTargetWinSetup.exe -p

Follow the install instructions that are in the SDS Install guide for the remainder of the setup.

Extract the sample scripts to a temporary directory on the SDS Base Tuner machine and copy setupDB.bat to
the SDS_install path (default is C:Program FilesDocumentumSDS). Open setupDB.bat in a text editor and change the
following lines:

  • set PUBLISH_MACHINE=SCS_Target:7717
  • set CONTENT_DIR=(full path to content you want to replicate on SCS_Target)
  • set XML_DIR=path to the SCS content directory on the SCS_Target (default: C:DocumentumSCSdata2788)
  • set WEBFARM1=SDS_Target:7717
  • set DBSERVER1=Target DB Server:7717
  • set WEBC_DIR=SCS Install dir on SDS_Target (default: c:DocumentumSCS)
  • set WEBC_AGENT_INI=Path to agent.ini on SDS_Target (default: C:DocumentumSCSadminconfig1agent.ini)
  • set TARGET_DIR=(full path to content you want to replicate on SDS_Target)
  • set TARGET_XML_DIR=Path to the directory on SDS_Target that will store the database content data to be replicated
  • set TXHOST=SDS_Base_Tuner:5282
  • set CHANNELHOST=SDS_Master_Tuner:5282

Site Deployment Services Rapid Install, Config and Troubleshooting

if the Target database server is on a box other than the SDS_Target, you can either
install SDS on the database server and subscribe to the same channels that you did for the SDS_Target, or
you can install the database client tools on the SDS_Target and point directly to the SDS_Target.

Save the script and run it. Now log back into https://SDSBaseTuner:8000. You should see entries created
by the script. On the Control and Monitoring tab, check the publish job and start. This should copy the source
that you specified to the target as well as copy the source DB files to the target and populate the DB with the same data
as the source DB

Modify the Sample Scripts

Now that you have working content and database deployments, you can examine the setup in the Deployment Manager UI and see how
the jobs interrelate. Change the names to be more meaningful, modify the sequence of events, add additional servers, etc. to
meet your needs.

Setup Auto Deploy

Using the Deployment Manager UI to push deployments is fine for testing but impractical for actual use. It is likely that you
will want to keep the SCS target and the SDS target in synch. This can be accomplished by setting up a post-synch job so that
any time an SCS push occurs, the SDS publish job is also called. To do this, follow the steps below:

  1. Extract the sample scripts to a temporary directory on the SCS_Target machine.
  2. Copy the webc_postsync.bat script to the SCS bin directory (default: C:DocumentumSCSproductbin).
  3. Copy the launch.bat script to the SDS root directory (default: C:Program FilesDocumentumSDS).
  4. Edit the launch.bat script as follows
    • set INSTALL_DIR=SDS root directory (default: C:Program FilesDocumentumSDS)
    • set DEPLOYMENT_NAME=Name of deployment job
    • set CHANHOST=SDS_Master_Tuner:5282
  5. Edit the SCS agent.ini file (default: C:DocumentumSCSadminconfig2788). Add the line:
    post_sync_script=Path to webc_postsync.bat (default: C:DocumentumSCSproductbinwebc_postsync.bat)

Site Deployment Services Rapid Install, Config and Troubleshooting

You can find the name of the deployment job by using the Deployment Manager UI. Click on Control and Monitoring
and click on the job you want to execute in the script (usually the publish job). Under the server group heading, you
will see the job name (ex: /WS Content Replicate/PublishMachine).

Solving Problems With Deployments

If the publishing jobs still do not work, here are a few possible problems and some techniques for troubleshooting them:

  1. Symptom: The SDS deploy is working. The content for the website content as well as the database content is making it over to the
    SDS target box, but the SDS target database is not being populated with content from the source database. No errors are reported
    during the SDS deployment.

    Solution: The problem is likely with the propDB job. edit the propDB.bat file and comment out the line that begins with
    “del”. This deletes the propDB job logfile. The log file will likely identify the problem you are having.

  2. Symptom: The SCS job works fine but the SDS job is failing.

    Solution: Search the SDS dirctory for files modified on the current day and sort by time. Open the files that were modified
    most recently to find some logging of the SDS deployment. There may be clues here to what is wrong.

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