Replication of Management History data
NOTE: Active Roles does not support replication on Azure SQL databases.
In Active Roles version 7.4 and later, the Management History data is stored in the Active Roles Management history database. So, if you have Active Roles replication configured as described in the Configuring replication section later in this document, the Management History data is replicated between Administration Services along with the configuration data. Given a large volume of the Management History data, this may cause considerable network traffic.
You can turn off replication of Management History data so as to reduce network traffic. However, doing so causes each database server to maintain a separate Management History data store. The result is that you can use Management History to examine the changes that were made only through the Administration Services that use the same database as the Administration Service you are connected to.
To sum up, the implications of turning off replication of Management History data are as follows:
- The features of Active Roles such as Approval Workflow, Temporal Group Memberships, and Undo Deprovisioning may not work as expected. Some operations that rely on those features may not be processed or displayed in a consistent way by client interfaces connected to different Administration Services.
Active Roles uses the Management History storage to hold approval, temporal group membership, and deprovisioning tasks. Without synchronizing information between Management History storages, such a task created by one of the Administration Services may not be present on other Administration Services. As a result, behavior of the Active Roles console or Web Interface varies depending on the chosen Administration Service.
Turning off replication of Management History data has no effect on replication of the other data pertinent to the configuration of Active Roles. Only the Management History-related portion of the configuration database is excluded from Active Roles replication.
The instructions on how to turn off replication of Management History data depend upon whether Active Roles replication is already configured.
Replication is not yet configured
When initially configuring Active Roles replication, you can ensure that the Management History data will not participate in Active Roles replication by assigning the Publisher role as follows (for definitions of the replication roles, see Configuring replication later in this document):
- With the Active Roles console, connect to the Administration Service whose SQL Server you want to hold the Publisher role.
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration and select the Configuration Databases container.
NOTE: Replication Support column is added under configuration databases container to indicate the replication support.
If the value of this column is Supported, it indicates that the replication is allowed for the database. If the value of this column is Unsupported value indicates that the database does not allow replication.
- In the details pane, right-click the database, and click Promote.
- Wait while the console performs the Promote operation.
- In the console tree, under Server Configuration, select the Management History Databases container.
- In the details pane, right-click the database, and click Demote.
- Wait while the console completes the Demote operation.
Then, you can configure Active Roles replication by using the Active Roles console as described in the Configuring replication section later in this document: Use the Add Replication Partner command on the database in the Configuration Databases container to add Subscribers to the Publisher you have configured.
Replication is already configured
This section outlines the instructions on how to turn off replication of Management History data in case that Active Roles replication is already configured as described in the Configuring replication section later in this document. You need to first delete all Subscribers for Management History data, and then demote the Publisher for Management History data. This only stops replication of Management History data, leaving the other replication functions intact.
To turn off replication of Management History data
- With the Active Roles console, connect to the Administration Service whose SQL Server holds the Publisher role.
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and select the Management History Databases container.
- Use the Delete command on each of the Subscriber databases to delete all Subscribers in the Management History Databases container.
- Right-click the Publisher database, and click Demote.
- Wait while the console completes the Demote operation.
Re-configuring replication of Management History data
With replication of Management History data turned off, it is still possible to have multiple Administration Services maintain the same Change History log by configuring them to use the same database. Note that the Administration Service version 6.x allows you to install multiple Services with the option to connect to a single configuration database. Thus, you can install the first Service in your environment, having the Setup program create a database. Then, you can install one more Service, having the Setup program configure the new Service to use the same database as the existing Service.
However, if different Administration Services in your environment use different database servers, you may need to re-configure replication of Management History data in order to take full advantage of the Management History feature. You can do so by managing objects in the Management History Databases container as follows.
To re-configure replication of Management History data
- With the Active Roles console, connect to the Administration Service whose SQL Server holds the Publisher role for configuration data.
- In the console tree, expand Configuration | Server Configuration, and select the Management History Databases container.
- In the details pane, right-click the database, and click Promote.
- Wait while the console performs the Promote operation.
- Use the Add Replication Partner command on the Publisher database in the Management History Databases container to add Subscribers for Management History data.
The Add Replication Partner command starts the wizard that is similar to that discussed in the Adding members to a replication group section later in this document. The only difference is that the list of Administration Services whose database servers can be designated as Subscribers for Management History data is limited to those Services that share the configuration data hosted on the Publisher you have selected.