Best Practices for File Vaulting and Replication
Use the following guidelines to administer file vaulting and replication effectively:
Working with File Vaults
• Always select the Automatic folder creation check box when creating a new vault. So, when the folder’s file upload threshold is met, a new folder will be created in the vault to upload the new content files.
• Select the Move files instead of deleting option when removing unreferenced files. Perform the Remove unreferenced files operation only if the mounted storage device is running out of space. For more details, see Cleaning Up Vaults and Folders.
• Subscribe to file vault alerts to receive email notifications in case of system failures and upload or download operation failures.
• Take vault backup at regular intervals. It is a good practice is to take vault and database backup simultaneously.
• Run the WContentVerify tool periodically and fix the content file errors reported by the tool. For more details, see Diagnostic and Repair Tools.
• Create a local backup vault for temporary storage of content files and mount it on a different physical storage device other than the original cachevault. When the cache vault becomes read-only, the local backup vault is enabled after one minute and stores the content files till the original cache vault is restored. For more details, see Default Vaults for Uploads and File Vaulting.
• If your organization has users who are performing upload and download operation in Windchill remotely, you must configure the Windchill File Server at their remote locations as the installation of remote File Server improves the upload and download operation performance for the remote users. For more details, see Configuring Remote File Servers.
◦ Ensure that the remote users are using nearest Windchill File Server for upload and download operation and have set the preference Preferred File Server. For more details on setting the preference, see Setting the Preferred File Server Site.
◦ Update the public key and private key pair periodically and deploy the updated public key on all configured File Servers.
◦ If you have configured multiple remote File Servers, configure the Site Proximity for each site. The order of the proximity of sites should be the order of distance between the sites. For example, first site in the Site Proximity list should be the nearest site.
• Avoid registering same File Server with multiple Windchill main sites.
• If security labels are configured, make sure that Security Label values are accessible to Site Principals. If all the Site Principals are restricted for a Security Label, then upload of document having that Security Label will fail.
Content Replication
• Configure the content replication schedules to recur when the Windchill main server is not busy serving user requests.
• Avoid concurrent content replication schedules because the multiple replication jobs will utilize the network bandwidth and other resources which can impose load on Windchill main server.
• Create only one replica vault per File Server for content replication.
Vault Configuration
• When you make certain changes in the vault configuration, the configuration must be broadcast from the main site to the File Server.
• If the main site is updated with latest CPS, apply the updates to all registered File Servers. For more details, see Critical Patch Sets section in File Server Remote Site Pre-Installation Steps.
• Use FvLoader and ReplicaLoader utilities, if you want to perform mass operations for Vault Configuration. For more details on the utilities, see About FvLoader and ReplicaLoader.
• Monitor the vault configuration periodically to ensure that the mount status is VALID, and content can be written to the folders. If mount status is INVALID, fix the mount and validate the mount status.
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The duplicate mount may lead to loss of data.
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• If any host in a Windchill cluster is no longer valid or not in use, delete it from the vault configuration.
• Always set Host Type as Cluster Node for the hosts.
Best Practices for working with Azure Blob Storage and AWS S3
• Always mount the Cache Vault on File system-based path. Do not mount the Cache Vault on AWS S3 or Azure Blob Cloud storage services as it may impact the performance of upload operations.
• Set IAM or MSI role as Authentication Strategy while configuring Windchill File Vaults to use AWS S3 service or Azure Blob Storage.
• It is strongly recommended to keep the Secure transfer required as enabled to ensure secure connections to Azure Blob Storage.
You can enable the Secure transfer as mentioned here.
Updating File Vaulting Properties and Content Rules
• Create content cleanup rules for cache vault. Also, set wt.fv.master.deleteUnreferencedFilesOnAutoVaultCleanup property to true. With this setting, you can avoid disk full scenario in cache vault. The default value is false.
• Modify the wt.fv.fvFileThreshold property value as per your requirement. Refer the documentation for your operating system and file system to find out the optimum value of maximum files to be written to a directory. The default value of this property is 50000.
• Set the property wt.fv.fvMountValidator.validationInterval to a valid value ranging from 3600 to 86400 seconds (1 to 24 hours). The default value is 86400 seconds (24 hours). Avoid setting the property to -1 as it disables the periodic mount validation process for entire system.
• Set property wt.intersvrcom.security.URLAuthentication=true in the wt.properties file. The default value is true.
• Set property wt.intersvrcom.URLAuthenticator.useUrlCache=true in the wt.properties file. The default value is true.
• Set property wt.intersvrcom.sitePing=true in the wt.properties file. The default value is true.
• Set property wt.fv.master.adhocCaching.flag=2 in the wt.properties file. The default value is 2.
• Set property wt.fv.useFvFileThreshold=true in the wt.properties file. The default value is true.
• Adjust the wt.fv.activeAutoFolderCount property value as per your business requirement. The default value is 2. Increase the value, if the daily file uploads are large in number.
• Set property wt.fv.useVaultsForAllContent to true in the wt.properties file. This property avoids storage of files in the database blob. The default value is true.
• Fine-tune the following properties to improve the performance of various file vaulting processes.
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Property
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Value
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wt.fv.CCSUpload.NumOfQueues
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The default value is 1.
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wt.fv.revaulting.NumOfQueues
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The default value is 1.
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wt.fv.master.Replication.NumOfQueues
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The default value is 3.
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wt.fv.master.replicationThreadCount
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The default value is 1.
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wt.fv.read.buffer_size
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The default value is 8192.
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wt.fv.download.buffer_size
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The default value is 8192.
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wt.fv.revaultQuerySize
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The default value is 1000.
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Content Security
• Though there are some obfuscation techniques in place to help reduce direct visibility to content in vault, it is strongly advised that access to vaults be closely controlled and monitored. The content is stored in vaults in a way that it would be difficult for a user (including administrators) to identify and download content, in order to retrieve customer IP.