Running Processes as a Service

The state keeper can run as a service hosted by a TIBCO FTL server. In this model, each TIBCO FTL server runs one state keeper as a service. These TIBCO FTL servers that are running ActiveSpaces components as services are called ActiveSpaces Core Servers.

To simplify deployments, you can also replace the administration daemon by an administration service, hosted by an ActiveSpaces Core Server. Such configuration is required in deployments that use security.

Although proxies can also be run in an ActiveSpaces Core Server, it is typically better to run them as standalone processes (outside the ActiveSpaces Core Server). This is because you might need to scale the number of proxies independently, driven by the number of client processes that need to connect and the load they impose on their proxy.

To configure an ActiveSpaces Core Server, start with a TIBCO FTL server YAML file and add the definitions of the grid components that you want the server to host. When the ActiveSpaces Core Server is configured, it is responsible for starting and stopping the grid components when it starts up and shuts down. The ActiveSpaces Core Server monitors the liveness of the grid components that it hosts and attempts to restart a component if it detects that it is not running. Combining a TIBCO FTL server, a state keeper and an administration daemon into one ActiveSpaces Core Server reduces the administrative overhead of running a grid.

Add each grid component to be hosted by an ActiveSpaces Core Server to the corresponding server item in the servers section of the TIBCO FTL YAML file and the values that would have been used as command-line parameters. In addition, indicate the location of the grid component binary file by using the value of the exepath property.