You are viewing limited content. For full access, please sign in.

Question

Question

How to Move Workflow to its Own Server?

Workflow
Updated January 3, 2020
asked on August 31, 2015

We currently have the Laserfiche and Workflow servers on the same VM. We are looking at possibly moving Workflow to its own server as we start to publish more and more workflows.

What is the recommended process for making that transition?

1 0

Answer

SELECTED ANSWER
replied on August 31, 2015

The move itself is not complicated, but making sure no events are lost is a bit involved.

So I would check Message Queuing (Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services, Message Queuing, Private Messages).  If all the "lfwf" queues show zero messages, then you don't have any current activity. If any of them show messages, I'd stop the Subscriber so it stops processing new events from Laserfiche and wait for the queues to empty out as the WF Server picks up the messages and starts new workflows.

Then, to make sure the new subscriber picks up where it left off on the old machine, I'd export HKLM\Software\Laserfiche\Workflow\monitored Repositories from the registry.

  1. Install Workflow on the new server.
  2. Open Workflow Config Manager on the old server and take a look at where the WF volume is stored 
  4. Check the paths for the custom activities, if any, in the Workflow Admin Console under Server Configuration\Custom Activities and copy the files over to the new server in the same paths.
  5. Stop the WF services on the old server.
  6. Copy over the WF volume to the new server (new folder path is fine as long as the WF Service can access it)
  7. Import the registry key on the new machine
  8. Configure WF on the new server and point to the SQL DB used by the old WF Server (adjust the volume path to point to the new location if necessary)

 

 

3 0
View 8 previous replies
replied on December 2, 2015

Thanks for your help

0 0
replied on August 26, 2019

So glad I asked this question 4 years ago. Just referenced it again!

0 0
replied on August 26, 2019

It's in the help file too now.

1 0
replied on August 27, 2019

Miruna

I just had a client contact me that I moved their Workflow server to its own server by following your steps above, but they are having issues with published Business Processes. Here is the error the end user is seeing from the Client:

If we go into Workflow and try to republish that Business Process, we receive the following message:

If they say yes it fixes the previous mentioned error for the end user. Is there another step that we should have done to prevent this from happening?

0 0
replied on August 27, 2019

Good point. Yes, you do need to republish business processes.

Or you can create a DNS alias for the new server to the old one's name. (I've seen customers who always DNS alias the servers specifically so they can be replaced without disturbing whatever applications are using them. All users know is they go to "lfs" for the repository and "lfwf" for Workflow. The actual machine underneath can be replaced as needed and its actual name is irrelevant)

0 0
replied on August 27, 2019

Good to know. Can a note be added to the help file that you created to include that please?

0 0
replied on August 27, 2019

will do.

1 0
replied on August 27, 2019

Much appreciated.

1 0
replied on November 22, 2019

On step 6 of the help file it says to export a registry key. I noticed in the registry key it has values for the server. If the repository server is also being moved, do we need to edit that value? Are there any other values that would need to be edited as well?

2 0
replied on November 22, 2019

You can, but that will only reconnect the subscriber. The Workflow Server needs redirects as well. It's best if you put in redirects, detach the repository from WF, turns off Workflow services, move LFS and add the repository back in to Workflow and confirm it works before moving WF.

Even if you choose to move Workflow and LFS at the same time, you should still add the redirects first.

Best practice would be to use DNS aliases for your servers so that the machines underneath can be changed as needed without requiring reconfiguration of any services that connect to them.

0 0
replied on January 3, 2020 • Show version history

Can the details of checking the Message Queuing also be added to the help file please?

Updating the Workflow Web Services URLs should probably also be added.

0 0

Replies

You are not allowed to reply in this post.
You are not allowed to follow up in this post.

Sign in to reply to this post.

Details
Related Posts
Loading ...