Spreading the server processes out over multiple nodes can extend the reliability and efficiency of Tableau Server by providing redundancy and additional computing power. Tableau Server includes a script that automates moving these processes to one of your other existing nodes so you can get complete access back to TSM and keep Tableau Server running. Having a few extremely large extracts could put your deployment in this category, as would having many small extracts. (This experiment was conducted in AWS, but the testing theory extends to any cloud provider.). As you monitor and gather data about the performance and usage, you can fine tune and configure the number of instances for these processes. With this type of installation you have a fully functional Tableau Server, with all Tableau Services Manager (TSM)and Tableau Server processes running on that single node, but this may not be the optimal way to use Tableau Server. Two Node Installation - Specialized for extract heavy environments. For more information, see Minimum hardware requirements for installation. For more information, see tsm topology set-node-role. 2003-2022 Tableau Software, LLC, a Salesforce Company. In the example shown above, both the nodes are on machines with 8 physical cores. All other processes, only one instance of the process is installed, regardless of hardware. For details, see Generate the node bootstrap file. Add Client File Service to every node that is running the Coordination Service. Amazon RDS offers scalability, reliability, high availability and security built in for PostgreSQL. If are using Tableau Prep Conductor to schedule and manage flows, and have an extract heavy environment, we recommend that you have at least 3 nodes and use the 3 node configuration described later in this topic. On the initial node, install all the processes except for the backgrounder. Tableau maintains a comprehensive set of IT controls which are regularly audited by independent firms to ensure we are meeting our compliance obligations. If not configured to use ATR, Tableau Server can continue to run for up to 72 hours after an initial node failure, before the lack of the licensing service impacts other processes. With a simple restart of the server, you can also change the underlying machines supporting the platform as long as their public IP address does not change. - Fast and Easy Visual Analysis with Tableau Software. An HA installation ofTableau Serverhas a minimum of three nodes and multiple redundant instances of key processes (the Repository, file store/Data Engine and coordination service) on different nodes.
At a minimum, Tableau Server processes will automatically restart to keep your system running in the event of component failure. Step 1: Planning the Environment Hardware failures are the most common cause of software platform outages. Furthermore, deploying and integrating with diverse and heterogeneous enterprise IT platforms is becoming the only way to support the current and future analytical needs of the business. 
We know that failures happen in real life and the best way to protect against these failures is to ensure redundancy in the system. For more information, see Configure Client File Service . The second is detecting when there are failures and triggering reliable failover mechanisms as necessary. For systems that have high availability requirements, you need a multi-node environment that has at least three nodes. Thats why Tableau is designed to meet your most stringent SLAs. The configuration of your Tableau Server can be different depending on your requirements and variables: For more information on Tableau Server scalability and the variables affecting scalability, see Tableau Server Scalability whitepaper. Auto-scaling functionality that terminates or instantiates machines based on demand is not supported. 
These instructions assume that your cluster meets the Distributed Requirements. 
Your Tableau account team is available to assess your requirements and assist with sizing.
For more information, see Tableau Server external repository. HA in Tableau Server is mainly achieved by: File redundancy with multiple File Store/Data Engine instances. When a licensed process starts or restarts, the process checks with the Tableau Server License Manager service on the primary node to verify there is a valid license. Today, more than ever, self-service analytics and data-driven decision-making are becoming the norm in organizations worldwide. We recommend testing your own infrastructure to find the configuration that best fits your needs. Mike is a 2015 Tableau Zen Master The goal is to minimise system downtime by eliminating single points of failure and enabling detection of failures with failover where possible. Important: Two-node configurations do not meet the minimum requirements for high availability. Two other processes are initially included on the initial node but can be added or moved to additional nodes, the CFS (Client File Service)and the Coordination Service. It only takes 15 seconds to fill out. In both new and existing deployment scenarios, the goal is to proactively maintain sufficient availability, capacity and headroom and minimise resource contention. Doing so with a multi-node cluster will put Tableau in a degraded state. Configure your additional node with the processes you want to run on it. A highly available installation of Tableau Server is a distributed installation that is designed to maximize the availability of Tableau Server. The hardware recommendations for production Tableau Server installations below are based on the hardware that the Tableau team uses to test Tableau Server scalability. The first computer you install Tableau on, the "initial node," has some unique characteristics. In addition to your production environment, Tableau recommends one test environment for testing upgrades and server topology changes. Having just a few, extremely large extracts could put your deployment in this category, as would having very many small extracts. The relative workload of each licence type must be factored into hardware sizing. Your installation options include: Single-node installationThis type of installation is reasonable for testing, running trials, and for environments that can handle occasional downtime and system availability due to lack of redundancy. As users are onboarded and start creating and consuming content, you should monitor the hardware and content utilisation to make informed decisions on server sizing using data from hardware monitoring tools and Tableau Servers Repository. Our customers confidence in the security of our solutions is paramount. 2003-2022 Tableau Software, LLC, a Salesforce Company. When things go wrong, being able to quickly restore to the most recent backup is critical. For more information on Tableau Server licensed processes, see Tableau Server Processes from the node. Tableau Server requires at least one instance of Client File Service (CFS). To build redundancy for the type of backgrounder jobs, have one of the nodes (initial node in this example) run all type of jobs. For example, you may have heavy extract environments which can mean dedicating some hardware resources to Backgrounder process. If you are installing Tableau Server in a virtual environment or a cloud-based deployment, see Virtual Machines and Public Cloud Deployments section later in this topic. Today, self-service analytics and data-driven decision-making are the norm in organizations worldwide. Start with a two node configuration if you are planning to publish, schedule, and manage flows on your Tableau Server. If you plan to have flows on your Tableau Server, it is recommended that you use two or more nodes and dedicated one of these nodes to run only flows. Similarly, follow the best practices provided by your virtual infrastructure provider to make sure Tableau Server has access to the appropriate compute, memory, and data resources. However, scalability and performance are heavily dependent on external systems and user activity. The repository has also been moved from the initial node to one of the additional nodes, and a second, passive instance has been added to the other new node. (default calculation: Number of physical cores divided by 4, up to a maximum of 4). We understand the heightened demands of running a mission critical platform. These additional steps include adding at least two additional nodes (for a minimum of three nodes in the cluster), adding a second instance of the repository, and second instances of the data engine/file store, adding additional gateway processes, and deploying a Coordination Service ensemble. Follow the pattern below to build your HA cluster: A 3-node Tableau Server HA deployment (note: Coordination Service and Client File Service are not explicitly shown). The development environment does not have to have identical hardware specs to the production and QA environments, unless the development environment is used for upgrade testing or participation in beta programmes. Tableau Server can be installed on-premises with physical or virtual machines or in the cloud and supports Windows or Linux operating systems. On the initial node, set the Backgrounder node role to run all job types including flows using the tsm topology set-node-role tsm configuration. Once a licensed process has received confirmation from the License Manager, the process does not need to reconfirm the license for 72 hours, or until the process restarts. Advanced high availability, robust failover, and fast disaster recovery is why the largest companies in the world choose Tableau for their enterprise analytics. Review the corresponding link to the hardware platform that fits your enterprise standards: If you deploy Tableau Server in the cloud, using dedicated hardware and static allocation of RAM eliminates varied performance due to resource contention. For more information on configuring node roles for backgrounder and file store, see Workload management through node roles. Tableau Server does not support deploying a multi-node cluster across different regions. Load testing and capacity planning should be conducted regularly, as outlined in Tableau maintenance. Taking a snapshot of a Tableau Server machine and restoring on a new machine is not supported. Scalability and performance are heavily dependent on external systems, such as sources of data, volume of data, network speeds, user workloads and workbook design, which can change rapidly as deployments progress. The need for specialised nodes evolves over time. Below is the number of instances of the processes for an 8 core machine: VizQL Server: Set to 2 instances. Regardless of your deployment size, Tableau Server provides you and your users with a consistent and reliable platform. The production and test environments should have identical hardware specs, server topology and configuration. If there is a problem with the initial node and you have redundant processes on your other nodes, there is no guarantee that Tableau Server will continue to run. 2003-2022 Tableau Software LLC. Whether you host Tableau Server on-premises or in the cloud, the backup process is the same. Isolated the backgrounder on the additional node to run only flows. We recommend that you keep the default configuration as your starting point. Influences how often you will need to take backups of your system. Eric is a principal business intelligence consultant for InterWorks. Note: If you're running Tableau Server 10.x to 2018.1.x, please read the High Availability for Tableau Server 10 whitepaper. It also describes how to architect, configure, and deploy on a variety of hardware to ensure stability and reliability. For example, for AWS installations, the 4 core minimum recommendation is equivalent of 8 AWS vCPUs. This topic describes three baseline architectures that can be used as starting points for your Tableau Server installations. Tableau Prep Conductor is automatically configured one the node where you have backgrounder installed. Memory should be at least 8 GB of RAM per core for a production server. 2003-2022 Tableau Software, LLC, a Salesforce Company. To recover from a situation where the initial node fails, you can move the TSM Controller and the License service to one of your already configured nodes. The diagram below illustrates how to plan for a range of RTO requirements: These baseline configurations may not be enough as your needs change and grow, and you might need to scale your Tableau Server beyond these configurations. Note: All nodes in a multi-node cluster must have the same type of operating system. This whitepaper outlines the high-availability and disaster-recovery features in Tableau Server 2018.2, after the release of the Tableau Services Manager (TSM). Index and Search Server across all the three nodes. Reasons for doing this include wanting to run as few processes as possible on the node to limit processing requests on the node. Note: This topic applies to Tableau Server only. All server processes are running on a single machine. For details on how to deploy a Coordination Service ensemble on your cluster, see Deploy a Coordination Service Ensemble .
Deployments where extracts are frequently refreshed (for example, several times a day during business hours) are often helped by more emphasis on the background process, which handles refresh tasks. This will allow administrators to test upgrades and participate in beta programmes in the test environment by restoring back production content. In addition to the above considerations, you should evaluate the importance of disaster recovery in your organization and plan for a deployment that helps you meet your disaster recovery goals and objectives. This whitepaper provides a deep dive into Tableaus architecture and how it scales with increasing workloads. This whitepaper outlines how Tableaus built-in backup and recovery technologies can be used to meet your DR needs. By integrating with AWS to configure an external repository for Tableau Server, you will be able to take advantage of these additional benefits of the cloud. We understand how important it is for users to readily see and understand their data. To see when the last licensing check occurred, look at the log files in the ProgramData\Tableau\Tableau Server\data\tabsvc\logs\licenseservice folder. - Fast and Easy Visual Analysis with Tableau Software. High Availability. This means you should make a point of moving the two unique processes to another of your running nodes as soon as possible. If you need a system that is highly available, see High Availability Installations (HA). The node roles features allows you to dedicate and scale resources to specific workloads. A 5-node Tableau Server HA deployment (note: Coordination Service and Client File Service are not explicitly shown). Tableau is the mission critical key to an organizations modern enterprise analytics platform. The tolerance for downtime will vary for each organization and depends on the SLAs you have established in your organization. It is essential for enterprise architects and IT leaders to understand how Tableau Server scales with data, content, and users.
You also need to make sure the computer you install Tableau Server on has adequate resources to handle the processes and the demands of users and data. This reliance on data requires a high degree of availability and stability of the underlying systems. That is why we have built Tableau Server with high availability out of the box and made it easy to configure and setup. It also describes how to architect, configure, and deploy on a variety of hardware to ensure stability and reliability. For details on how to configure CFS on other nodes, see Configure Client File Service . Adding additional instances of CFS to other nodes provides additional duplication of processes and so reduces the possibility of server downtime due to an issue with one of the CFS nodes. Typically 2 vCPUs = 1 physical core for Tableau Server. Our licensing model supports redundant server components so youre only paying for production environments. Users may favour the QA environment to circumvent stringent policies or delays to get content into production, so work towards a good balance by automating content migration to the production server with the Content Migration Tool found in the Tableau Server Management Add-on or custom workflow scripts using Tableaus REST APIs. He has worked for Fortune 500 companies as well as small businesses, helping them understand their vast data troves. Recovery Point Objective (RPO), a measure of how much data loss your business can tolerate. For information about moving the License service and TSM Controller from the initial node to another node, see Recover from an initial node failure below. You cannot install a multi-node instance of Tableau Server on a combination of Linux and Windows nodes. Index and Search Server : Index and Search Server memory can be configured to improve performance by using the indexandsearchserver.vmopts TSM configuration option. Downtime is still possible in the event of an initial node failure, or when a node running Application Server (VizPortal) is recovering from a failure. For more information about initial node failure, see If an initial node fails below. This white paper aims to provide guidance and best practices for mission-critical deployments, placing emphasis on high availability, performance, scalability and governance. All rights reserved, Minimum hardware requirements for installation, Virtual Machines and Public Cloud Deployments, Two Node Installation - Specialized for flow environments.
It also demonstrates how the performance of Tableau Server 10 compares with earlier versions. There are various reasons why you might want to have a multi-node installation. Note: If you have both a heavy extract environment, and schedule and manage flows on your server, we recommend that you use the 3 node configuration described below. A well-executed Tableau Server deployment consists of 5 essential steps: To build in redundancy for HA related items such as repository, file redundancy, and failover, you need a minimum of three nodes. One instance of Ask Data is automatically configured on the node that has Data Server. His background is in networking, IT services development and virtualization/storage architecture. 2003-2022 Tableau Software, LLC, a Salesforce Company. However you may not have enough information about these variables when you deploy Tableau Server for the first time. For example, on the node where it is dedicated to running backgrounder, initially, you can set the number of backgrounders to minimum (total number of cores divided by four), and increase the number of backgrounder processes later if you find that: Extract refreshes are taking a long time to complete, Subscriptions and alerts are not completing on time. With the right configuration, a distributed installation can also provide you with automatic repository failover. For Tableau Server the RPO cannot be shorter than the time it takes to complete a full backup of your server. We use industry-standard security protocols and best practices, keep our users well informed, and quickly respond to security issues on the rare occasion that they arise. For more information, see Tableau monitoring and Measurement of Tableau user engagement and adoption. On one of the additional nodes, set the backgrounder to run only flows, and the other additional node to run all jobs except for flows. Adding an external load balancer to make sure your installation is robust to Gateway failures and make sure that requests only get routed to functioning Gateway processes. For existing deployments, you will analyse Tableau Server data to evaluate workload and usage in addition to environment and sources of data. Configure each additional node with the processes you want to run on it. By supporting both live and extract data types, a restored Tableau Server is available immediately, even without access to the original data sources. We also realize there will always be events that threaten the availability of business intelligence systems, whether related to hardware, software, networks, or even human error. When deploying Tableau Server in the public cloud, you have a few options to further mitigate risk of downtime. For more information on failover, see Repository Failover . Please note: If you are running Tableau Server version 2018.2 or more recent (with Tableau Services Manager), please see this version of the High Availability whitepaper with TSM. If there is a problem with the initial node, Tableau Server may not continue to function, even when configured for high availability. You might also remove licensed Tableau Server processes from the node if you have a core-based license and do not want the initial node cores to count against your core use. You can add instances of other processes, including multiple instances of a process on a node. Individual processes within Tableau will automatically restart if they degrade, keeping the server at peak performance without requiring manual oversight. Determining the topology (number of nodes, number of Tableau Server processes) of your Tableau Server deployment requires you to consider these variables: your environment, sources of data and management to provide self-service data access, workload, and usage. Use the TSM Backup command to generate a backup of the Tableau Server and restore that backup on a new machine. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 for any additional nodes you want to install. You can also add a load balancer to distribute requests among the gateways. This whitepaper outlines High Availability in Tableau Server 2018.2 with Tableau Services Manager. For less than 40-core clusters, use 8-core nodes, and in clusters greater than 40-cores, use 16-core nodes. For details on how to recover from a failure on the initial node, see Recover from an Initial Node Failure. This provides redundancy and improved availability in the event that one instance of the Coordination Service has problems. Single Server installations can also be expanded to multi-node installation as your workloads grow. Your production environment will support modern analytics using production and sandbox projects with content validation, promotion and certification processes all in one environment. This whitepaper outlines the high-availability and disaster-recovery features in Tableau Server 10. Users and decision makers have come to depend on immediate access to data and self-service tools to answer their questions in real-time and rely on these systems daily. With an HA installation, there is built-in redundancy of those key processes, including multiple File Stores, and automatic Repository failover. All Rights Reserved. It also describes how to architect, configure, and deploy on a variety of hardware. For more information, see Configure the additional node. If the process is not able to verify that it is licensed (if the primary node is unavailable, for example) it cannot run, but it continues to check for a valid license until it confirms the license. The following table shows examples of equivalent workloads on each row: The actual workload of Creators, Explorers and Viewers may vary with usage of Tableau Server features, such as frequency of connecting to data and web authoring, as well as viewing and interacting with content. NOTE: In certain circumstances you may want to limit the processes running on your initial node. But you can utilise hot topology to responsively adjust Tableau Server process allocation, allowing you to tune the balance of machine costs and capacity needs. The diagram above shows the maximum for an 8 core node. Step 5: Maintaining & Monitoring. When planning for disaster recovery (DR) in your Tableau environment, there are two main factors to consider: Recovery Time Objective (RTO), a measure of how much downtime your business can accept before a full recovery. All rights reserved, Install and initialize an additional node, Example:Install and Configure a Three-Node HA Cluster. Brad Fair and Eric Shiarla from InterWorks and Mike Roberts from Pluralsight bring a comprehensive understanding of the hardware, networking and integration requirements of enterprise customers, they provide a road map for Tableau Server planning and implementation. The production and test environments should have identical hardware specs, server topology and configuration. With a Tableau Server installation, the initial node includes two services that are only installed on that node, the License service, and the TSMController. 2003-2022 Tableau Software LLC. Below is the number of instances of the processes for an 8 core machine: Backgrounder: Minimum 2, maximum 4. - Fast and Easy Visual Analysis with Tableau Software. Users and decision makers have come to depend on immediate access to data and self-service tools to answer their questions in real time and rely on these systems daily.
In such a scenario, a single server configuration may not be the right option as you may need additional specialized nodes to isolate the difference workloads. On the initial node, install all the processes. Brad is a solution architect based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. 2003-2022 Tableau Software, LLC, Salesforce . If this is the first time you are deploying Tableau Server, you should focus on your environment standards and sources of data. For more information on performance tuning, see Performance Tuning topic. While HA configurations reduce downtime, you may still encounter failures in case of a disaster or hardware failures. This is one of the primary reasons to move to a multi-node configuration. Regardless of where you choose to deploy Tableau Server, properly-sized hardware is critical. Step 3: Load Testing Three processes run only on the initial node and cannot be moved to any other node except in a failure situation, the License Service (License Manager), Activation Service, and TSM Controller (Administration Controller).
There is less redundancy and fewer safeguards in the event of a problem with one of the server processes. For more information, see tsmconfiguration set Options. Users and decision-makers have come to depend on immediate access to data and self-service tools to answer their questions in real time and rely on these systems daily. Today, self-service analytics and data-driven decision-making are the norm in organizations worldwide. For more information, see Mission-critical reliability for high-availablity and disaster-recovery concepts and white papers. Below are the number of processes for an 8 core machine. For an example of how to conduct such a test, please see the Tableau at the speed of EC2 white paper. Use the tsm topology set-node-role tsm configuration to configure this setting. Cache Server, and Data Server: Set to 2 instances. You cannot use a trial license key for a distributed Tableau Server installation.
Move all the licensed process from the initial node to additional nodes. In addition to Tableau Servers native high availability and disaster recovery capabilities, our support for external load balancers and swappable VM nodes means you can automate failover and minimize the effects of downtime. For server installations of three or more nodes, we recommend that you add additional instances of the Coordination Service by deploying a new Coordination Service ensemble.