Question

Separate Workflow Server

Workflow Version 11 How To

Updated November 2, 2023

asked on November 1, 2023

Hello,

I have a scenario where laserfiche is installed on a failover cluster of two nodes and the workflow usage is quite high. A decision was made to install workflow on a separate server due to

- Workflow processing taking all the processing resources and hanging the server

- Whenever there is a failover to the other node, the workflows do not trigger unless we reimport the workflows in designer.

We would like to attain a situation where the workflow server is independent and whichever server is active in the cluster, the workflows will still run. Secondly in case the workflow server is down for some reason, I would want to revert back to one of the node to act as the interim workflow server.

How do I attain such a configuration. Is it by installing the subscribers on the nodes and the workflow server in the new server? Your advise and any other important information will be highly appreciated.

Regards,

Mark

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Replies

replied on November 1, 2023

I'm not sure the clustering route is the best way to go about it in your case. If the Workflow server is hanging, failing over the Subscriber won't really help because it would just be pumping more activity to it from the repository.

Investigating the underlying issue might give you a better way forward. You could either throw more resources at WF, LFS or SQL OR you could split some workflows onto their own server and load balance it that way.

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replied on November 2, 2023

Hi Miruna,

Thanks for your response. However the system is currently installed as a failover structure with two servers (server1 and server2). Initially we had the workflow on both servers but because of the issues arising whenever there is a failover, we left it in Server1. But now we want to introduce server3 only for workflow in order not to share resources with other LF apps. All am asking is, since one of server1 or server2 may be active at a given time, how do we ensure whichever of the two servers is active, the workflow in server3 is not affected and will still run the workflows when triggered?

Regards,

Mark

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replied on November 2, 2023

If you mean that the Laserfiche Server when you refer to "server1 or server2", then clients would be connecting to the cluster DNS alias and it would be irrelevant which node it active. Same thing if you meant SQL.

If you are trying to keep the Subscriber clustered, which we really don't recommend, you would need to failover MSMQ and its Windows registry at the same time so it continue process activity from the repository.

Workflow Server does not support clustering. If you meant to keep WF on server 1 and 2 as well as install it on server 3, then they would need to have separate databases. Connecting multiple Workflow Servers to the same database is not supported and could result in corrupted data.

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replied on November 1, 2023

The Workflow service itself cannot auto-failover in a failover cluster, but the Workflow subscriber and Queue can.

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replied on November 1, 2023

Hi Blake,

Thanks for the information. So you reckon that I install the workflow service on the independent server and the subscriber and queue on the two failover nodes?

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replied on November 1, 2023

Before I answer that, I'm trying to find a presentation that Laserfiche gave at Empower one year that talked about this. I don't recall if they gave specifics on how to configure it. I checked the help files and didn't see anything there. I'll keep looking and let you know if I find it.

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Separate Workflow Server

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