How to Replicate a TIBCO Spotfire Environment.

Keywords: clone, duplicate, duplication, replication, replicate, copy, Spotfire, system, server, entire, environment, mirror.

How to Replicate a TIBCO Spotfire Environment

If the goal is to create a separate copy of a Spotfire environment, for example a copy of a Production environment to have as UAT, this can be done by replicating the system, starting with the Spotfire database. But it is not that straight-forward since the database contains a number of references to the servers and nodes used (hostnames, etc) which will result in cross-communication between the environments and which need to be corrected. This article provides the steps to replicate a TIBCO Spotfire environment with the full library.  The most straightforward way to "replicate" a Spotfire Environment is to:

1. Make a backup of the Spotfire database schema and to restore this in another location
2. Install Spotfire Server of the same release and service pack as was used on the originating Spotfire environment on a suitable machine, but do not start the Spotfire service on this new App server. 
3. Create a new bootstrap to the restored database schema (remember to use the same encryption password if used) belonging to the new server.
4. Schedule a period of downtime that the source environment will not be used. Continue with the next step at the beginning of this period.
5. Create snapshots of all App servers and NM servers (in source environment); create and archive a backup of the source (active) Spotfire database (or snapshot the database server VM).
6. Stop all Spotfire Server and Node Manager services of the source environment and leave them off until the end of this process.
7. Start the Spotfire Server service of the new environment.
8. Use the config commands list-nodes and delete-node to remove all previous nodes. Just leave the server node registered by the above step 3 (bootstrap creation). Before proceeding, confirm that the list-nodes command returns only the new Spotfire Server node.
9. Do all the other post-installation tasks needed (database drivers, extensions, Kerberos, certificates, customizations to the server.xml, etc.). In the Config Tool of the new server be sure to update the Public Address, Join Database, and User Action Log values.
10. Restart the Spotfire Server service of the new node and monitor the catalina.log and the server.log at startup (setting server log config to debug helps)
11. If things looks ok, try to login using the Admin Web UI.
12. Start to build up the rest of the environment as desired with other servers, nodes, etc.
13. Turn on all Spotfire Server and Node Manager services of the source environment, and confirm that the system is not impacted.

Replication of a Spotfire environment is not covered in formal TIBCO Release Documentation, implying that this activity is not supported to the degree of standard processes, that are documented. It should be recognized that customers using this article are taking on some amount of risk; caution, review, and testing is recommended as part of this process.

If you do not want to bring over the whole environment (e.g. large library) there is no other supported path than to use the library export/import commands that are available. If that is used it is important to start with the users and groups and remember to include GUIDs, so later imports will get mapped correctly (regarding rights and ownership, etc).

See the installation documentation: Installation and configuration