20.13.3. Discovery Groups

Broadcast groups are used for broadcasting connectors over a network. On the other hand discovery groups define how connector information is received from broadcast endpoints (UDP or JGroups broadcast group). A discovery group maintains a list of connector pair- one for each broadcast by a different server.
When a discovery group receives broadcasts on a broadcast endpoint for a specific server, it accordingly updates the connector pairs entry in the list for the specific server. If it does not receive a broadcast from a specific server for a long time, it removes the server's entry from the list altogether.
Discovery groups are mainly used by cluster connections and Java Messaging Service (JMS) clients to obtain initial connection information in order to download the required topology.

Note

You must configure each discovery group with an appropriate broadcast endpoint which matches its broadcast group counterpart (UDP or JGroups).

20.13.3.1. Configuring User Datagram Protocol (UDP) Discovery Group on the Server

The example shown below defines a UDP discovery group:
<discovery-groups>
   <discovery-group name="my-discovery-group">
      <local-bind-address>172.16.9.7</local-bind-address>
      <group-address>231.7.7.7</group-address>
      <group-port>9876</group-port>
      <refresh-timeout>10000</refresh-timeout>
   </discovery-group>
</discovery-groups>

Note

In the configuration example shown above, the attributes "local-bind-address", "group-address" and "group-port" are deprecated. Instead of these attributes you can choose to use the attribute "socket-binding".
The example shown below defines a UDP discovery group replacing all the deprecated attributes with the attribute "socket-binding":
<discovery-groups>
   <discovery-group name="my-discovery-group">
      <socket-binding>messaging-group</socket-binding>
      <refresh-timeout>10000</refresh-timeout>
   </discovery-group>
</discovery-groups>
The table shown below describes all the important parameters used in the above example and in general to define a discovery group:

Table 20.12. UDP Discovery Group Parameters

Attribute Description
name attribute
This attribute denotes the name of your discovery group. Each discovery name must have a unique name per server.
local-bind-address
[Deprecated] This is an optional UDP specific attribute. It is used to configure a discovery group to listen on a specific interface when using multiple interfaces on the same machine.
group-address
[Deprecated] This is a compulsory UDP specific attribute. It is used to configure a discovery group to listen on the multicast IP address of a group. The value of this attribute must match the group-address attribute of the broadcast group that you wish to listen from.
group-port
[Deprecated] This is a compulsory UDP specific attribute. It is used to configure the UDP port of the multicast group. The value of this attribute must match the group-port attribute of the multicast group that you wish to listen from.
socket-binding
This denotes the discovery group socket binding
refresh-timeout
This is an optional UDP specific attribute. It is used to configure the time period (in milliseconds) for which the discovery group waits before removing a server's connector pair entry from the list after receiving the last broadcast from that server. The value of refresh-timeout must be set significantly higher than the value of broadcast-period attribute on the broadcast group to prevent quick removal servers from the list when the broadcast process is still on. The default value of this attribute is 10,000 milliseconds.