Using the same Domain for two or more DX UIM environments

Products

• DX Unified Infrastructure Management (Nimsoft / UIM)

Issue/Introduction

You are setting up a new DX UIM environment parallel to an existing environment.

For example:

• a "test" or "development" or "staging" environment
• an environment running a newer version of DX UIM to migrate to instead of upgrading
• setting up a fresh database/hub(s) on newer OS versions and migrating existing robots

You would like to use the same UIM Domain name for both environments.

Environment

DX UIM - Any Version
hub/robot - any version

Resolution

In most cases, it will be far easier to use a new, unique domain name for each environment. 

However, in some cases, business needs may require that the domain name be kept.  In such cases, it is possible to have multiple, separate environments with the same domain name as long as care is taken to ensure they do not communicate unexpectedly.  Specifically, in order to use the same DX UIM domain on two different installations, it is important to ensure the two instances do not communicate via UDP broadcast, so that hubs and robots do not "jump" environments. 

Hubs try to locate other hubs in the same domain by sending a UDP broadcast to 255.255.255.255 and robots will do the same in order to find other hubs if their assigned hub is unavailable.    Both must be disabled to avoid "mixing" the domains.

In many modern environments, UDP broadcasts are disabled.  This may be due to network policies, virtualized networks, firewall settings, etc.  In other cases, UDP broadcasts may be allowed only within a subnet but not across subnets.  

If UDP broadcasts are not enabled in your environment, these steps should not be necessary.   If UDP broadcasts are enabled only within a subnet, you may be able to separate your domains by ensuring that all hubs and robots in a domain are in the same subnet.   In a distributed environment this is not practical but in a lab environment it may be workable.

Otherwise, if UDP broadcasts are enabled in your environment, or you are not sure, follow the below steps to disable this behavior from within DX UIM itself.

Prepare the old environment

Before deploying the new environment with the same domain, you must prepare the old environment by disabling all the broadcast behavior.

On each hub:

• Open the hub GUI, click on "Settings" in the lower right corner and then naviigate to the "General" tab and uncheck "Broadcast On"
• OR, edit hub.cfg, and in the <hub> section, add or modify the key "broadcast_on" to a value of no.

 

On Each Robot:

• open the controller GUI, and in the "Nimsoft" tab, uncheck the box for "Search the subnet for a temporary hub when primary and secondary hubs are unavailable."
  
• The GUI will update. Ensure "Wait for primary hub to become available" is selected and click OK to save the configuration.
  
• OR, in the robot.cfg under the <controller> section, add or modify the key "temporary_hub_broadcast" to a value of no.
  

After you have completed this on all hubs and robots in the old environment, go ahead and set up the new environment.

After setting up the new environment

Once the new environment is in place (Primary Hub/DX UIM Server), migrate the other hubs.

• If there are tunnels from secondary hubs to the old primary hub, point them to the new primary hub and remove them from the old environment.
• If there are Name Services entries connecting the secondary hubs, remove them from the old environment and add them to the new environment.
• Robots connected to a secondary will automatically follow their assigned hub to the new environment when the hub is migrated
• Robots connected to the old primary hub should be moved by changing the "hubip" in hub.cfg
• For any new robots or hub you add to the environment, you will need to disable the above Broadcast-related settings to avoid the possibility of "jumping" to the old domain.

 

 

Additional Information

You can deploy the configuration changes to disable broadcast "en masse" using a configuration package.