Recommended CLM deployment topologies

Standard topologies overview

This page describes the Recommended CLM Deployment Topologies for versions 3.x and 4.x. Refer to Standard deployment topologies overview for high-level description of the standard topologies, how they are categorized and their key characteristics.

These recommended deployment topologies for the Rational solution for Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) are a subset of the standard CLM deployment topologies. For the rest of the standard topologies, see alternative CLM deployment topologies. Within this wiki, additional guidance and best practices will be developed about how to best instantiate these recommended topologies.

Introduction and approach

These recommended topologies were chosen based on the following criteria:

1. Those that are most commonly and successfully deployed to date by customers and internally within IBM
2. Those that are based upon the most commonly available platforms, operating systems and middleware
3. Those that are based upon technologies that customers, partners and the IBM Rational Field have the most experience with
4. Those that are the focus of testing within IBM Rational.

These recommended topologies represent only a few of the many permutations for deploying the Rational solution for CLM. The CLM systems requirements capture the full set of options for supported deployment permutations.

These topologies have been defined to capture good deployment patterns, which include additional guidance on building in flexibility, scalability, performance, and support for other non-functional requirements, such as high availability, disaster recovery, and security.

Recommended topologies

(CLM-E1) Enterprise - Distributed / Linux / DB2

This enterprise topology uses Linux for the server operating systems. The CLM applications, RRDI and JTS are distributed across separate servers and WAS instances. A reverse proxy is used to ensure public URI stability. DB2 is used for the databases and is hosted on a separate server. Finally, licenses are served by a floating license server and Tivoli Directory Server provides the LDAP based user management.

(CLM-E1) Enterprise - Distributed / Linux / DB2

(CLM-E2) Enterprise - Distributed / all Microsoft

This enterprise topology uses Windows for the server operating systems. The CLM applications, RRDI and JTS are distributed across separate servers and WAS instances. A reverse proxy is used to ensure public URI stability. SQL Server is used for the databases and is hosted on a separate server. Finally, licenses are served by a floating license server and Active Directory provides the LDAP based user management.

(CLM-E2) Enterprise - Distributed / all Microsoft

Applying the topologies

Every customer's environment is different with unique, necessary and often immutable requirements and constraints. We recognize that these standard topologies may not provide enough detail to make them immediately implementable in some customer environments, but we wanted to describe several topologies with enough variability to give an indication of what is possible and where our recommendations start.

While we recommend customers start with a standard topology that is most applicable to them, we recognize they will need to make changes and customizations to support their own unique requirements and constraints. IBM will support your own implementations, but may ask you to describe which topology is most applicable to your deployment and ask you to document what is unique in your environment to expedite any potential support situation.

To aid you in documenting your chosen deployment topology, we have made the following Rational Software Architect (RSA) model files available:

• CLM standard topologies
• CLM standard topologies 5.0.2
• SSE standard topologies 4.0.3 and 4.0.4
• SSE standard topologies 4.0.5
• SSE standard topologies 4.0.6
• SSE standard topologies 5.0.0
• SSE standard topologies 5.0.1
• SSE standard topologies 5.0.2

These may be imported into RSA then further modified or expanded to represent your environment. Look at the Installation_Instructions.txt file for information on how to import the models into RSA.

Datasheets and sizing guidelines

Find CLM-specific performance datasheets, sizing guidelines and performance-related case studies on the Performance datasheets and sizing guidelines page.

Next steps

This topic is meant to briefly introduce these standard topologies and describe how they might be applied. Work is already underway to build upon and apply them. Subsequent updates to this topic and supporting topics will provide additional insight into their usage.

Future updates to this topic or supporting topics may cover:

• Deeper look at select topologies
• Provide suggested tuning parameters
• Consider high availability database topologies
• Begin to expand this topology model into other domains
• Discussion of strategic integrations with other Rational and non-Rational products.

Related topics: Alternative CLM deployment topologies, Deployment planning: Where to start?

External links:

• None

Additional contributors: None