Configuring and maintaining IBM BPM systems in federated environments

Configuration properties in the server.xml file

You need a configured set of system, indexer, and retriever elements for each IBM BPM system that you want to include in the federated environment. For example, to federate and index BPD-related data on an IBM BPM system, configure the following elements in the server.xml file: ibmPfs_federatedSystem, ibmPfs_bpdIndexer, ibmPfs_bpdRetriever. For more information about the configuration properties, see Configuration properties for the Process Federation Server index.

Adding an IBM BPM system to the federated environment

The server.xml template file that is provided with Process Federation Server contains sample elements that you can use as the basis for adding an IBM BPM system to the federated environment. Complete the following steps for each IBM BPM system that you want to add:

1. Ensure that indexing is enabled on the IBM BPM system. For more information, see Enabling indexing of BPD-related data on an IBM BPM server in a federated environment and Enabling indexing of BPEL-related data on an IBM BPM server in a federated environment.
2. Open the server.xml configuration file for editing. By default, the configuration file is in the pfs_install_root/usr/servers/server_name directory on Process Federation Server.
3. Add an ibmPfs_federatedSystem element to the server.xml file.

   This element includes general configuration properties that apply to both BPD and BPEL indexes. Ensure that you specify a value for the id property.

4. Add the index and REST retriever implementation elements for the data that you are indexing. For example, for BPD-related data, add the ibmPfs_bpdIndexer and ibmPfs_bpdRetriever elements.
   1. Ensure that the value of the federatedSystemRef property in the implementation elements is the same as the id property in the ibmPfs_federatedSystem element.
   2. Ensure that the indexer connects directly to the IBM BPM database server by specifying a value for the dataSourceRef property.
5. Save your changes to the server.xml file and restart Process Federation Server.

Modifying configuration properties

You can modify all the general configuration properties in the ibmPfs_federatedSystem element for a federated IBM BPM system, except the index.number_of_shards property. In addition, you can modify the indexer and retriever implementation properties that are specific to the system type.

Removing a federated IBM BPM system

To remove an IBM BPM system from the federated environment, in the server.xml file, remove or comment out the ibmPfs_federatedSystem element and the associated indexer and retriever elements for the system. The indexing service on the Process Federation Server node stops and the index is removed from federated queries. The index is still available on the node so that you can re-enable the IBM BPM system later.

To completely remove the index, stop all process federation servers, and delete the corresponding index from the /elasticsearch directory on the Process Federation Server node.

To keep the federated IBM BPM system configured but temporarily stop the indexing service, remove or comment out the indexer element, for example, the ibmPfs_bpdIndexer element.

Rebuilding an index

If problems occur with the Process Federation Server index, you might need to rebuild it. Complete the following steps to rebuild an index:

1. Stop all process federation servers.
2. Delete the index from the /elasticsearch directory on the file system on all process federation servers.
3. Restart all process federation servers. The index is rebuilt.

Monitoring and administering an index

Elasticsearch provides an HTTP-based REST API to query, monitor, and administer the Elasticsearch service and indexes. For production environments, Process Federation Server provides forwarder applications to secure REST requests through an HTTPS secure connection. For more information, see Enabling monitoring and administration of the Elasticsearch service.