Creating Vaults and Mounting Folders

For each cluster, external storage configuration requires that at least one vault is created, and that each vault contains one or more folders. (These folders are created using the Vault Configuration window. The folders created in the Vault Configuration window are not the same as folders created using Windchill Explorer or directories in the file system.) Content files are stored in folders in a vault. The vault to store is selected in accordance with the user-specified set of vaulting rules.

For performance and ease of administration, PTC recommends that there is one file vault per server in a cluster and that all content is forced to the vault (using the wt.fv.forceContentToVault=true property). Use this approach rather than configuring granular rules by domain in the Policy Administration utility. Be sure to configure multiple logical folders within the vault to accommodate all content.

Using the Vault Configuration window, you must mount each pair of folder and host to a directory on the Windchill server file system. For each folder, all its mounts should lead to the same directory on the storage device, regardless of the host-specific path. When a Windchill item matches the vaulting policy for the vault, one of the vault folders is selected (active folder) and the item content is saved in the corresponding file-system directory.

In a cluster environment, all nodes need to share the same data, including the vaulted content. All hosts in the cluster must share those directories used for vaulting and must be able to access them locally. This is enforced using third-party technologies like mounted drives for the Windows platform, NFS, SAN, and so on.

All folders must be mounted to all available hosts. Otherwise, a method server running on a host without a mount is unable to access content files when a download operation is requested. Each folder must have its own unique directory to store the content; multiple folders must not have the same physical location. The mounting paths can be different, but it is required that each folder be mounted to only one directory or folder on the storage device. It is also required that all nodes can access the content files stored in the directory or folder on the storage device via the path from the corresponding folder or host mount.