| This post was kindly contributed by Business Intelligence Notes for SAS® BI Users - go there to comment and to read the full post. |
As a consultant working for multiple clients, having JBoss installed on a laptop is common to perform demonstrations or to develop SAS BI applications. JBoss can become flaky over time and be a source of frustration for local installations because the operating environment changes very frequently compared to a server environment. Digging through logs trying to find a direct answer to why a report link does not work or why a BI Dashboard indicator will not link properly is a huge headache. I have experienced instances where some web applications work and others do not. A simple configuration task can be performed to prevent a lot of these random issues – especially for mobile laptops which change environments frequently. It involves adding an additional JVM option to the scripts or batch files which start the web application server (JBoss) and the SAS Remote Services service.
Binding JBoss
The 9.3 Mid-Tier administration guide describes how to set the JGroups Bind Address for JBoss, Weblogic, and WebSphere. The JGroup Bind Address needs to be set for SAS Remote Services and JBoss (or whatever the mid-tier application server is). The bind address MUST be the same for both JBoss and SAS Remote Services – check for typos! SAS Support recommends setting it to “localhost”. I would also consider a custom alias configured in the windows hosts file, which you can change on the fly if needed.
As an example from my own past experiences, I would start JBoss then move location from one desk to another changing from a wired physical connection to a wireless connection. By default, JBoss and SAS Remote Services was bound to the physical LAN connection which no longer existed. In my case, BI Dashboard indicators did not link properly at this point. To correct I set the JGroups bind address to the virtual adapter which is installed on my laptop for VirtualBox – my favorite virtualization tool 
. The virtual adapter is always enabled and provides a great bind address for JBoss and SAS Remote Services which will not change. Now I can unplug without having to worry about JBoss!
Other Options
I have been able to solve installation problems in larger corporate environments with complex network topology using this technique. SAS Support describes a common problem which is solved by setting the JGroups bind address.
To most people, the “black box” architecture of JBoss and SAS BI is hard to understand. These types of JVM settings may or may not help your installation but are always worth a shot.
| This post was kindly contributed by Business Intelligence Notes for SAS® BI Users - go there to comment and to read the full post. |