A typical configuration step when building a Maximo cluster on Windows systems is to mount a shared filesystem on all the physical systems that belongs to the cluster. This allows to store attachments in a single place in order to be able to access them from all the servers that builds up the cluster.
It is also important to adopt an approach that automatically remounts the network share in case of system restarts.
This article describes the steps required to mount a shared filesystem on Windows 2008 Server.
- Launch Windows Task Scheduler
- Create a folder named ‘IBM’
- Create a Basic Task
- Name: Mount DOCLINKS folder
- Trigger: When the computer starts
- Program: net
- Arguments: use X: \\[SHAREDFOLDER] /persistent:YES
- Double click on the task to open its properties
- Click on ‘Change User or Group’ button
- Type ‘SYSTEM’ and press OK
Running this task with SYSTEM privileges will make the mounted drive accessible from all users including the WebSphere processes.
Providing network credentials
If the net use command fails asking for credentials you can use the following syntax to provide them.
net use X: \\[SHAREDFOLDER] /persistent:YES [PASSWORD] /USER:[USERNAME]
Symbolic link technique
Drew Hohnstein has proposed to use the mklink command to create a symbolic link to the network folder.
A command like this should do the trick.
mklink /D C:\doclinks \\[SHAREDFOLDER]
UNC technique
If you can avoid to secure the shared folder you may also try this simple technique: Configure the doclink attachment folder in UNC path
Bruno, good post. On a Windows server I use symbolic links to do the same thing. I'm not really sure if there is an advantage of one versus the other. However, with this approach, when we copy our production database down to our test or development systems, those environments are not mapped to a shared drive. Instead the c:\ibm\smp\mif-globaldir folder resides on the server itself. Therefore, no need to update the path once the database is restored into a development environment as the path points to the local filesystem instead of the network filesystem (by virtue of the development server not having a symbolic link). This is the command that I use to accomplish this.
mklink /D c:\ibm\SMP\mif-globaldir \\\\\mif-globaldir
Hope this is helpful. I enjoy your posts!
Looks like the command above got bungled…
mklink /D c:\ibm\SMP\mif-globaldir \\servername\subfolder\subfolder\ibm\smp\mif-globaldir
Great tip Drew!
It seems a good alternative to my technique.
Not sure it works when credentials must be provided to mount the network folder.
Thank you
Similar techinique if you have access to a NAS or other network storage device is to create a folder in that area. You can associate a service name to the folder to help manage security against it. Then on the server side, under services, use the log on tab to run Maximo/Websphere as that service account. This provides a solution to problems such as sensitve info and the growing need of increased space if you rely on allot of attachments. I would also really be interested in a automatic way to clean up attachments that have been "removed" from the system. Though deleted in the Maximo document reference links, it still resides on the folder side and should be archived or deleted…