BusinessObjects Enterprise Administrator's Guide

Communication between servers and the CMS directory listing service

The Central Management Server (CMS) manages a directory listing service for the application server and the servers in the Intelligence tier and the Processing tier. See "Architecture overview and diagram" on page 53 for a listing of these servers.

When a BusinessObjects Enterprise server first connects to the BusinessObjects Enterprise framework, it registers its IP address and port number with the CMS. By default this port number is dynamically chosen.

When one BusinessObjects Enterprise server needs to communicate with another, it contacts the directory listing service on the CMS to obtain the connection information. The first server then uses this information to communicate directly with the second server.

For example, before running a scheduled report, the Job Server must communicate with the Input File Repository Server (FRS) to obtain the report object. To do so:

1. The Job Server contacts the CMS and requests connection information for the Input FRS.
2. The CMS replies to the Job Server with the IP address and port number of the Input FRS.
3. The Job Server uses this information to connect directly to the Input FRS. All subsequent communications between the two servers continues using the same address and port.

Note:    

• This communication model is also used when a BusinessObjects Enterprise SDK or the WCA communicates directly with a server in the Intelligence tier or the Processing tier.
• Communications between the CMS and the BusinessObjects Enterprise SDK and WCA follow another model. See Communication between the application tier and CMS.
• Using the -requestport command, you can configure any BusinessObjects Enterprise server to register a fixed port number with the CMS, rather than using one that is dynamically selected.