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Chapter 2 Creating a TIBCO Silver Fabric Enabler for Adapter for SAP Stack : Creating TIBCO Silver Fabric Enabler for Adapter for SAP Components

Creating TIBCO Silver Fabric Enabler for Adapter for SAP Components
This Component will perform the following tasks:
To configure the TIBCO® Adapter for SAP Component, perform these tasks:
 
Task A Specify Component Name
1.
Using the TIBCO Silver® Fabric Administration Tool, select Stacks > Components.
2.
On the Components page, select Create New TIBCO ActiveMatrix Adapter for SAP Component in the Global Actions list.
3.
Figure 1 Name and Describe the Component
Task B Select the Software Version
You can select the version of the distribution you want TIBCO® Adapter for SAP to run, as shown in Figure 2.
You can select any version of the distributions installed in the Silver® Fabric Broker. By default, the latest versions of the distributions are displayed.
Figure 2 Choose TIBCO Product Distribution Versions
Select the optional distribution and click Next
Task C Set the TIBCO ActiveMatrix Adapter for SAP Basic Configuration
The TIBCO ActiveMatrix Adapter for SAP Basic Configuration page allows for definition of the JDBC driver, setting a specific TIBCO Domain machine name (the TIBCO Logical Machine name - TLM), provides for specification of Fast TLM Restart, and allows uploading of external jar files and prepending/appending the path in the ClassPath. Each of the settings are described as below
1.
Specify a JDBC driver to publish with the TIBCO® Adapter for SAP Distribution for TIBCO Silver® Fabric so that it can communicate with the TIBCO Administrator Domain database. When the TIBCO Administrator uses a database as the domain storage, you must upload a JDBC driver so the component can interact with it.
The JDBC driver must match the database type used by the TIBCO Administrator. This procedure is the same as uploading a JDBC driver for the TIBCO Administrator component.
If the Domain is not stored in a database, then don’t upload a JDBC driver.
2.
The adapter requires access to SAP Java Connector (SAP JCo) components, which must be obtained separately from SAP. You must supply the platform-specific, bit-specific (32- or 64-bit), third-party Java Connector files in a zip file so that the Enabler Component can upload it to the Engine for use. The latest SAP JCo libraries can be downloaded from SAP Service Marketplace at: http://service.sap.com/connectors. Also see SAP OSS Note 1077727 for information on the latest release available and how to download the software.
3.
The TIBCO Domain Machine Name (also known as the TIBCO Logical Machine name - TLM) provides for publishing of a unique Component. The TIBCO Domain Machine virtualizes the machine publishing so that component publishing can maintain state when the targeted engine is changed for whatever reason.
If for example, the target machine is restarted because of an OS update or a hardware change, you can restart the virtualized machine on different hardware using TLM.
When the TIBCO Domain Machine name is set, the component .ear or .JAR files are republished and they start on the new virtual machine hardware. Adapter for SAP Applications that have been previously published through TIBCO Administrator or through the AppManage commandline interface are published again and restarted on the new hardware.
TIBCO Domain machine name: To activate use of the TIBCO Domain Logical Machine Name enter a value in the TIBCO Domain machine name field. The TIBCO Domain machine name can use alphanumeric characters, hyphen (-), or underscore (_) characters. Do not use other special characters, including period or comma. The name length must be less than 64 characters.
When the component is instantiated multiple times, the TLM machine name is: <Your_TLM_Name>_<ComponentInstanceNumber> , where the <ComponentInstanceNumber> is just a sequential incrementing integer.
When the component instance number is 0, the TLM machine name should be <Your_TLM_Name>.
4.
Sets the desired services state when the TIBCO Logical Machine is restarted. When the TLM is restarted service instances are republished and either started or stopped. The stopped services state setting might be convenient for developers who are testing machines with many services and don’t have to start it for every logical machine change.
5.
Fast TIBCO Logical Machine Restart provides for accelerated restart of the engine so that many archives can be re-published within a reduced amount of time. Enhanced restart times are achieved by using a saved state stored on a shared Network File System drive instead of synchronizing with the domain repository. To set your expectations properly, "fast" does not mean instantaneous or even amazingly fast, but it is faster than if the archives were loaded from the domain repository.
The shared NFS directory drive for Fast TLM Restart requires the following:
The shared drive must be READ/WRITE accessible to all engine daemons running as TIBCO Logical Machines in a TIBCO Silver Cloud.
If you want to force redeployment (synchronization with the domain) once, add a file call “ForceRedeploy.txt” in the domainDataHome (<domainDataDir>/<DomainName>/<TLMNAME>/<DomainName>. It redeploys all applications (no FAST TLM) at startup and then deletes the file (it is one time action).
To enable Fast TIBCO Logical Machine restart simply enter the directory path of the shared NFS drive (on Windows servers - a mapped drive) and make sure that the host grants permissions allowing the user who launches the engines to read and write in that location.
6.
Select this option to undeploy and remove all the applications deployed on the
TIBCO Logical Machine at component shutdown..
7.
Select this option to avoid redeployment of the EAR file whenever the TIBCO Logical Machine restarts.
8.
Select this option to forcefully kill the Adapter for SAP processes at shutdown. Even though the adapter for SAP engine is always stopped at shutdown, in case the Hawk is down, the adapter for SAP engine stops abruptly resulting in orphan engines. To avoid such orphan engines, the engine daemon kills the adsap forcefully.
9.
Add external JAR file(s) to the Adapter for SAP Component: As an option, JAR files can be uploaded for publishing with the TIBCO Silver Fabric Enabler for Adapter for SAP component.
The check box "Add the JAR file(s) in front of the ClassPath (check), otherwise at the end of the ClassPath (unchecked)" means just what it says. The JAR file name can be prepended in front of the ClassPath by checking the box and if it is left unchecked the JAR file name is appended at the end of the ClassPath. Of course, this setting does not apply if a JAR file is not uploaded for addition to the ClassPath.
 
10.
Upload individual JAR file(s) to be either appended or prepended to the ClassPath. All uploaded JARs are added in the same way according to how the check box is set.
To remove unwanted JAR files use the Menu button to display the list of Wizard configuration steps and select Add/Override/Customize Enabler and Component-specific content files. Relative paths to external jar files added might be removed with that window.
Task D Upload a Project (optional)
If you want TIBCO Silver Fabric Enabler for Adapter for SAP components to publish and run one or more Adapter for SAP projects, upload one or more archive files (EAR or ZIP files) as follows:
1.
Click the Add button in the Upload, Remove, or Recorder Archive Files panel,
2.
Click the Browse button in the Upload A File panel to navigate to the EAR or ZIP file and click the OK button.
 
You can upload any one of the following archive files:
When you a upload an Adapter for SAP EAR file, the deployment uses the default value of the global variables set in TIBCO Designer.
You can create a ZIP file that contains an EAR file and optionally an XML properties file. The XML file can contain all the published configurations, path name, global variables, and so on.
To create an XML properties file for the project or for an archive for continuous deployment, perform the following steps:
a.
In TIBCO_HOME/tra/tra_version/bin, run the following command:
AppManage –export –ear EarFile.ear -out DeploymentConfig.xml
b.
c.
Create a ZIP file with the file EarFile.ear and DeploymentConfig.xml.
For details about the creation of the DeploymentConfig.xml file, refer to the TIBCO Runtime Agent documentation, Scripting Deployment User’s Guide.
Alternatively you can can also deploy applications from TIBCO Administrator or using the AppManage Domain utility.
Task E Hawk Application Management Interface (AMI) Configuration (Optional)
The TIBCO Hawk AMI Configuration page defines how the Admin Component uses TIBCO Rendezvous with TIBCO Hawk Microagents (HMA). Even when EMS is used as the primary transport, HMA still uses Rendezvous as the transport.
The configuration parameters in the TIBCO Hawk AMI Configuration window are as described.
AMI Hawk Service: specifies the TIBCO Hawk port number, for example, TIBCO Rendezvous connects with TIBCO Hawk on the default port 7474. AMI Hawk Service and AMI Hawk Daemon must be set with valid values together. Setting only one of them results in an error.
AMI Hawk Daemon: specifies the location of the TIBCO Hawk Daemon. A value of "tcp:yyyy" corresponds to a local Hawk Daemon where "yyyy" is the port number. A Hawk Daemon located elsewhere is specified by a value of the protocol, IP address, and port number: "tcp:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:yyyy".
The AMI Hawk Service and the AMI Hawk Daemon ports can be the same or different. By default, different TLMs on the same engine daemon (physical machine) are using the same RV transport (default AMI Hawk Service=7475, and default AMI Hawk Daemon=tcp:7474). This setting enables visibility of all of the deployed applications on each TLM even if some applications are NOT deployed on this particular TLM.
AMI Hawk Network is generally, an empty string, and all three fields can be left empty. If all three fields are left empty then the enabler uses the default value"7475" and "tcp:7474".
Task F Configure TIBCO Hawk Agent Running Condition
Enter an integer to specify the number of seconds between periodic verification checks that the TIBCO Hawk Agent is still running.
If the TIBCO Hawk Agent becomes unresponsive to this verification then the process is automatically restarted.
Enter an integer to specify the number of restart retries for the TIBCO Hawk Agent before the TIBCO Silver Fabric engine container is restarted. A successful restart resets the count.
Use this option only if regular stop does not work. Select this option if you want to kill all the TIBCO Hawk Agent processes on shutdown. It stops all those processes which were started by the engine daemon.
Task G Uploading Hawk MicroAgent Plugin (optional)
You can upload Hawk MicroAgent plug-ins to HawkAgent as a .zip file. These Hawk microagents collect information and operate using that information. They execute specific tasks known as methods.
The .zip file gets extracted into the HMA plugin directory. If the directory is not empty, select one of the following options:
Delete the entire directory before copying the uploaded files
• Keep all existing files and replace the existing files with the uploaded ones
Task H Add or Edit Runtime Context Variables (optional)
String, Environment, System, or Encrypted variables may be added to the Component to define and set runtime specific context variables.
Select a variable type from the Add Variable drop-down list or if required, edit the variable.
Figure 3 Adding a Runtime Context Variable
 
Variable values from a container may be added to the runtime as well. Use the Add from Container button to add container-specific context variables.
You can add a string variable to change the preexisting context variables such as:
ARCHIVE_DETECTION_FREQUENCY.
ARCHIVE_DETECTION_FREQUENCY is the periodic interval (the default value is 30 seconds) for detection of deployed archives and report to the broker. The broker uses this data to synchronize the archive with scaling rules.
These variables are not exposed in the interface, but you can change their values. In this case ensure that you set the variable values higher than the time needed to deploy and start an archive.
Changes are optional, because all variables have default values that are usually appropriate for the most common use cases.
After you have added any runtime context variable you can select the variable (selected row is highlighted) and Edit to change its attributes. Selected rows can also be removed.
 
Figure 4 Editing a Runtime Context Variable
Task I Upload, Add, Customize, or Remove a Content File
Content files can be uploaded, added from an enabler container, edited with a simple text editor, or removed using the "Add/override/Enabler Container and Component-specific content files" page.
To remove unwanted JAR files use the Menu button to display the list of Wizard configuration steps and select Add/Override/Customize Container and Component-specific content files. Relative paths to external jar files that are added, can be removed with that window.
Task J Remove or Add Adapter for SAP Component Statistics
You can see the list of component runtime statistics that are tracked when the Adapter for SAP component is published and running. You can remove or later add back those statistics according to your implementation needs.
Task K Edit Configuration File (Optional)
Use the Edit the Configuration File page with extreme caution. Do not use the page unless the configuration.xml is backed up and specific knowledge about the TIBCO Silver Fabric system is being applied. This interface is used for more advanced customizations and normally it should be left alone.
For more information on what and how the configure.xml can be changed refer to "The configure.xml File" section in the TIBCO Silver® Fabric Developer’s Guide
Figure 5 Edit the Configuration File page
As an example, if you wanted to change the default Java heap size of the JVM in file hawkagenttra.template from 256M to 1024M.
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' standalone='yes' ?>
  <containerConfig>
    <configFiles baseDir="${TIBCO_HOME}/tra/5.7/template/domainutility" include="hawkagenttra.template">
    <regex pattern="java\.heap\.size\.max\s+[0-9]+[a-zA-Z]+"replacement="java.heap.size.max 1024M" />
    </configFiles>
  </containerConfig>
The property, baseDir, in the <configFiles> element is used to specify the path that includes the file to be updated. It can be modified if needed. For example, if the TIBCO Runtime Administrator (TRA) version was 5.8 instead of 5.7, then the baseDir value would be ${TIBCO_HOME}/tra/5.8/template/domainutility
The property, include, in <configFiles> element is used to specify which file(s) need to be replaced. It can specify whatever files you want to change. The asterisk wild card may be used to represent a string of characters like for instance: "*.tra" to change all of the .tra files in %baseDir%.
The property, pattern, in the <regex> element is used to specify the contents that need to be replaced within the previously specified files. The value of pattern can be a regular expression.
The property, replacement, in <regex> element is used to specify the new contents of the node specified by the pattern property value.
Task L Finish Configuring the Component
Almost all of the other screens are generic for TIBCO Silver® Fabric Containers.
These final configurations are optional for TIBCO® Adapter for SAP Components. Refer to TIBCO Silver® Fabric User’s Guide for more information on these configuration screens.
Click the Finish button to save your changes and then you can publish the Component as part of an Application Stack.
To do this, select Publish Component in the Actions list located at the line of the Component you just created.

Copyright © TIBCO Software Inc. All Rights Reserved