After KIE Server Router introduction there was quite interesting feedback especially regarding integration with workbench. Main point identified was the extra management needed when KIE Servers run in managed mode. This extra management was to setup (or more configure as router self register itself in the controller) to deal with all possible containers that backend KIE Servers could use.
So to put it straight, let's look at one scenario:
Another (related to this) feature was added as well, this time to the integration between KIE Server and the Router. Till know KIE Server was only attempting to notify router when it starts. Though when at that time router was not available KIE Server didn't retry to notify it. That could lead into situations where server was up but router was not aware of it. Enhanced integration is that KIE Server will schedule retries (with default 10 seconds interval) to constantly try to notify router. This way as soon as router comes up it will receive notification from KIE Server and then register it (and its containers) in workbench.
Small features but makes the integration much easier and reliable.
Special thanks goes to Karel who lead the QE test day for KIE Server, well done Karel and the team!
So to put it straight, let's look at one scenario:
- single KIE Server Router
- two KIE Servers with unique server ids (pointing to different server templates in workbench)
- hiring
- hosting hiring container
- evaluation
- hosting evaluation container
- single workbench with KIE Server controller
So with this setup, upon start KIE Server router will self register it in the controller but the servlet template will not have any containers defined. What impact does it produce? It means that workbench integration with KIE Server will not know how to construct data objects when interacting with it. In most of the cases it will simply say - no way to connect to KIE Server.
So to solve that, administrator would have to manually define all containers in the KIE Server Router's server template that are behind the router. This might work for simple cases where number of containers does not change too often but if the environment is much more dynamic it becomes quite an issue...
To address this out of the box, KIE Server Router is now equipped with logic to notify the controller about containers from the backend KIE Servers. This is done automatically whenever KIE Server deploys or undeploys a container. That is then directly registered in server template and can be used right of in workbench.
Here is how it actually works
Thanks to this integration between router and controller, there is no more manual intervention needed from the administrator side whenever new KIE Servers or new containers are added to be managed by the router.
Another (related to this) feature was added as well, this time to the integration between KIE Server and the Router. Till know KIE Server was only attempting to notify router when it starts. Though when at that time router was not available KIE Server didn't retry to notify it. That could lead into situations where server was up but router was not aware of it. Enhanced integration is that KIE Server will schedule retries (with default 10 seconds interval) to constantly try to notify router. This way as soon as router comes up it will receive notification from KIE Server and then register it (and its containers) in workbench.
Small features but makes the integration much easier and reliable.
Special thanks goes to Karel who lead the QE test day for KIE Server, well done Karel and the team!
