To Set Up a Multi-site Environment

Use the AssetWise Information Integrity Server installer to install the Storage Service on another server.

Typically you can just install the full AssetWise Information Integrity Server (by default all options are on) and then disable the individual services you are not using in AssetWise System Management Console (under the Service Manager node). Another option is to install just the Application Server and Storage Service options in the AssetWise Information Integrity Server installer.

On this new server, open the AssetWise System Management Console. In the Explorer pane, select Service Manager. In the right pane, on the Encryption tab, make sure this server uses the same encryption key as the original server.

Tip: All servers that share the same datasource must use the same encryption key, otherwise storage replication (documented later in this procedure) will fail.

On the original AssetWise Information Integrity Server computer (in San Diego), open the AssetWise System Management Console. In the Explorer pane, expand the Communities node and select your community.

A diagram of your current environment is displayed in the content pane.

The default site name is Main. As long as there is only one site, you can leave the site name as is. However, once you add a second site, you should rename the first site to make its name more meaningful.

Right-click the site and select Properties. Rename the site as required. In this example, the Main site has been renamed San Diego. After renaming the site, click OK in the information dialog that opens. The message is valid, but you can ignore the content for now.

Select the community again in the Explorer pane.

The content pane reflects the new name for the site (San Diego in this case).

Right-click in the content pane and select Add site. In the Site Properties dialog, enter the name and description of your new site and click OK.

The new site is added to the community diagram.

Right-click your community and select Properties.

The Datasource field still refers to the original Main site.

Reselect the datasource from the list (this time select the datasource on the new site) and click OK.

When prompted, click OK and restart the services assigned to this community.

Locate any services that were assigned to run against this community (for example, Storage) and in the Communities Served list, uncheck the check box next to the community and then check the check box again.

Now go to your new server, open AssetWise System Management Console, and add a community.

Remember there is only one AssetWise Information Integrity Server (in San Diego), but you must now state that you are in the new site.

Log in to the community when prompted.

Now on your new storage server you should see the same community diagram.

In the Explorer pane, add a device under the Storage node, then add a repository under the device. Make sure you add the new repository to the same repository group as your San Diego repository.

In the Explorer pane, expand the Communities node and select the community you just added. In the content pane, you see that your London-based server has been added to the diagram, as it is now acting as a storage server.

Right-click the Client in your new site (London) and select Link. Create a link to the server in your original site (San Diego). Double-click the link between the client and a module in a different site (for example, from the client in London to the EQ-HIGHLAND server in San Diego).

The properties of the link are displayed.

Set Speed to Slow.

Double-click the link between the client and the storage server within the same site. You will see that the speed is set to Fast.

Repeat these steps and create a link from the client in San Diego to the server in London. Your diagram now appears as follows:

What you want to achieve is to indicate that a link between a client and a module in the same site is relatively quick, while a link between a client and a module in a different site is slower. This enables the system to select the quickest machine. The system has no idea where the machines are geographically, simply that when a user is logged in at one location, server X is faster than server Y.

So in our example case, the link between the client in San Diego and EQ-HIGHLAND in London can be set as fast, while the link between the client in San Diego and the storage module, EQP-HIGHQA, in London site can be set as medium or slow.

In summary, you should now have two sites, London and San Diego, containing two repositories. Users from San Diego will be able to add and view files in the local repository in San Diego. San Diego users will also be able to view files that exist in the repository in London (which will have been added by the London users). And vice versa with the users in London.

As long as the repositories belong to the same repository group, when you click the repository group under your community, the repositories will be displayed.

Both repository groups shown

AssetWise gives you the ability to replicate between repositories linked to the same repository group. Files in the London repository may be replicated to the repository in San Diego, meaning that there will be no bandwidth restrictions across the WAN when viewing files in the remote repository.

To replicate files, right-click the repository name in the content pane and select Replicate Repository.

The Replicate Repository dialog opens.

The Source Repository is the repository that you have selected. Choose the Destination Repository from the list.

A message is shown stating how many replication jobs have been created. These can be seen within the Storage Queue.

To confirm, in this example, this will result in users in London now being able to add files to their local storage server, and also view files from their local storage server, that originally existed in the repository hosted in San Diego.

If you need to replicate both ways, you will need to go back to this replicate repository stage and submit a new replicate job.

Note: This is the manual process for replication. If you want to automate this process, there are stored procedures that can be called from the database scheduler services. The stored procedure is called ebp_synchronize_repositories. Please contact Bentley support ( ) for further information.