Deploy an asset to a single Secure Agent or a Secure Agent group based on your business needs. If the Process Server uses the Secure Agent group, you can use the Secure Agent load balanced configuration or a Secure Agent Cluster configuration based on your requirements.
When you deploy Application Integration processes, connections, or service connectors to a Secure Agent, you deploy the assets to the Process Server service of the Secure Agent. All Secure Agents with the Process Server service use a PostgreSQL database.
You can deploy an asset to the following Secure Agent configurations:
Single Secure Agent
A single Secure Agent might be the only agent in a group, or one of many agents on a group.
You can use Secure Agent groups to deploy Process Server services using the following Secure Agent configurations:
Secure Agent load balancing
When you deploy an asset to a Secure Agent group, Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services performs load balancing. Use the Secure Agent load balanced configuration to distribute requests if you process stateless requests or use the Secure Agent only to serve OData requests.
Secure Agent Cluster
A Secure Agent Cluster is an agent group that has a master Secure Agent. Use the Secure Agent Cluster configuration when you want all Process Servers to receive information about process execution activity.
The following table summarizes the process execution of the Secure Agent in different scenarios:
Single Secure Agent
Secure Agent Group
Secure Agent Load Balancing
Secure Agent Cluster
Agent Available
Process executes.
Process executes.
Process executes.
Agent Unavailable
Process does not execute.
Process executes on any available Secure Agent.
Process executes on any available Secure Agent.
Agent Stops Mid-Execution
Process does not execute.
Process stops when the Secure Agent stops.
Process continues to execute on another Secure Agent.
For more information about Process Server load balancing and clustering on a Secure Agent, see Knowledge Base article DOC-17437.
Deploy to a single Secure Agent
You can deploy an asset directly to one agent in a group.
When you deploy an asset to a single Secure Agent, no other Process Server in the Secure Agent group receives the asset definitions.
The following image shows a sample configuration where process X is deployed directly to Secure Agent 1:
Only Secure Agent 1 can execute Process X. If Secure Agent 1 is unavailable, the process does not execute.
Deploy to a Secure Agent group
A Secure Agent group contains multiple agents. You can deploy an asset to a Secure Agent group.
Depending on the business requirements, you can use the Secure Agent groups to deploy Process Server services using the following Secure Agent configurations:
Secure Agent load balanced configuration
Use the Secure Agent load balanced configuration to distribute requests if you process stateless requests or use the Secure Agent only to serve OData requests.
When you deploy an asset to a Secure Agent group, you use a load balanced configuration. Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services performs the load balancing. You can add multiple Secure Agents to a group to balance the distribution of tasks across Process Servers. At run time, Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services dispatches incoming requests to available Secure Agents in a round-robin manner.
You can also use a custom load balancer by setting the load-balance-url Process Server property. For more information, see Process Server Properties.
All Secure Agents in a group use individual PostgreSQL databases. When you deploy an asset to a Secure Agent group, all Process Servers within the group receive details about new or updated asset definitions. However, the other Process Servers in the group do not receive details about the execution activity of an asset. For example, if a Secure Agent within the group fails during process execution, the process does not continue to execute on another Secure Agent within the group.
The following image shows a sample configuration where process X is deployed to Secure Agent group A:
If you modify and re-publish process X, all three Secure Agents receive the updated definition. Any Secure Agent can execute the process.
For example, if the process is invoked and Secure Agent 1 and Secure Agent 2 are unavailable, the load balanced configuration ensures that Secure Agent 3 executes process X. However, Secure Agent 1 and Secure Agent 2 do not receive information about whether the process has faulted or completed successfully. If Secure Agent 3 stops while executing the process X, the process does not execute further.
Secure Agent Cluster configuration
Use the Secure Agent Cluster configuration if you are processing long-running processes and need to perform recovery of payload processing from one node to another. A clustered configuration shares a single database server with all the cluster nodes.
A Secure Agent Cluster is an agent group with a master Secure Agent. You can deploy an asset to a Secure Agent Cluster.
When you deploy an asset to a Secure Agent Cluster, all Process Servers receive information about process execution activity. The master Secure Agent receives information and informs the other Secure Agents. If a Secure Agent fails during process execution, the process continues to execute on another Secure Agent within the cluster.
To enable the cluster configuration for a Process Server, click the Runtime Environments tab in Administrator. In the System Configuration Details section, set the cluster-enabled Process Server property value to true as shown in the following image:
All Process Servers in a cluster share the PostgreSQL database of the master agent.
To define the master Secure Agent, use the primary-node Process Server property. For more information, see Process Server Properties.
The following image shows a sample configuration where process X is deployed to Secure Agent Cluster A:
If Secure Agent 3 starts executing process X but stops midway, either Secure Agent 1 or Secure Agent 2 continues to execute the process.
For more information about Secure Agent groups, see Runtime Environments.
