Deploying and starting the Apache Ignite servers

To use client-server clustering, deploy and start the Apache Ignite servers before you deploy and start the Pega cluster. The Apache Ignite servers provide base clustering capabilities, including communication between nodes. You must have a minimum of three stand-alone Apache Ignite servers for one Pega cluster.

Perform the following procedure on each Apache Ignite server.

1. Make sure that the JAVA_HOME environment variable points to a valid Java installation directory (JRE or JDK).
2. Copy the prcluster_service.war file, which is used to start the cluster service, to the webapps directory on the Apache Tomcat server. The prcluster_service.war file is located in the Archives directory of the Pega Platform distribution image.
3. Edit the cluster protocol in the prconfig.xml file, located in the /WEB-INF/classes/ directory or the prcluster_service.war file. The Hazelcast cluster protocol is the default configuration.
   1. Add the following setting to the prconfig.xml file: <env name="identification/cluster/protocol" value="ignite" />
   2. Pass the following JVM argument to the application server: -DNodeSettings=identification/cluster/protocol=ignite
4. Start the JVM.

After a successful startup, you can review the topology snapshot in the PegaRULES log files. By default, the log files are generated in the ../work/Catalina/localhost/prcluster_service/ directory and are accessible only from a terminal window.

You can also optionally set up ELK (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana) for a convenient way to access and analyze the log files. For more information about configuring ELK, see the Configuring Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana (ELK) for log management article on the PDN.