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5.7. Extended Example: Defining Required EAP Configuration

The Setup

Tim the IT Guy at Example Corp. has one EAP server running in his production environment. Because of the production load, the EAP server was routinely running out of memory, which was degrading its performance and causing downtime for Example Corp.'s website.

To resolve his immediate memory problem, all Tim has to do is change the heap size setting for his EAP instance. However, Tim needs another strategy for managing the configuration long-term. If he adds another production EAP instance or deploys a new one to replace his current one, it is going to hit the same memory-related performance problems without the new heap size setting.
What to Do

There are three things that Tim wants to accomplish to maintain his EAP performance:

  • Find a way to consistently apply configuration to EAP instances.
    He defines a template for JBoss EAP instances (Section 5.3, “Creating a Drift Definition Template”). To maintain consistency, the template sets the Attach to template value to true, and each resource-level drift definition will preserve that settings. This ensures that any changes to the template are automatically applied to the JBoss resource drift definitions.
  • Use his current production settings as a basis for future EAP instances.
    He pins his latest snapshot, with the higher heap settings, to the template definition (Section 5.6.4, “Pinning to a Template”). Every EAP instance is going to be compared against that baseline, so any with the wrong heap setting will immediately be marked out of compliance.
  • Be made aware of specific differences between his current EAP settings and his preferred settings.
    He creates an alert definition (Section 5.8, “Defining Drift Alerts”) which specifically targets the bin/run.conf file. This way, he knows precisely whether the heap settings and other JVM settings are wrong for his new instance. He can even use alerts to gather more information about how his EAP instance configuration is different, like using a CLI script to compare the current EAP configuration against the pinned snapshot and then send him the diff.
Expected Results

Tim brings a new server online, with a new EAP instance for the production environment. He applies the drift template to the new resource and, within a few minutes, receives a notification that his run.conf file is not compliant with his preferred configuration. He changes the heap settings on the new EAP instance without having to wait for performance degradation to remember the change.