Different FMS configurations may be required based on volume of files to be transferred or stored, how frequently  files are accessed by clients, whether clients are at remote or home location, managing single or multiple sites/database etc. Few of the frequently used FMS configurations are discussed here in this post. The diagram below depicts the different FMS configurations that may best meet the mentioned purposes.

 

Single FSC with Multiple Volumes

In a typical small deployment, teamcenter installation provides a single FSC that mounts a single volume. Adding few additional volumes to this deployment will create the following  FMS Configurations:

 

This type of configuration may be required when volume of files to be stored is huge or there are additional integrations with teamcenter.

In this case, multiple volumes are defined for single FSC.In FMS Configuration file, each volume must have an entry under this FSC.The volume statement also specifies the root directory for each volume.The volumes can be either local disk volumes or mounted volumes on network.

File Upload & Default Volume:When a new file is uploaded by user, the default volume for the file is determined by the volume attribute of either the user or the user’s group in the Organization application.So,for a specific user or for a specific user’s group, files are uploaded to a specified default volume.

Moving Volume data from one volume to other

Volume data can be moved from one volume to another volume using the move_volume_files utility. To move volume data, an XML template file contains allocation rules with defined user criteria, , Item/Item Revision criteria,dataset criteria(including type) and volume criteria(space available) based on which files are moved. The move_volume_files utility is used to retrieve this XML file containing the volume allocation rules template, edit the rules as required and then the utility is used to move the volume files(arguments that can be used with utility : [-outrulesfile=xml_file] , [-rulesfile=xml_file –f=move] ). This utility can come useful if specific type of data needs to be maintained in each volume (e.g. putting JT files and CAD files in separate volumes).The utility can be run as schedule task or cron job.

Multiple FSC Configuration (Volume Servers)

This configuration may be required when high volume of data is requested simultaneously through different clients. Since there are multiple FSC servers, it can approximately handle ‘n’ times (number of FSC servers) the file transfer volume of single FSC deployment .The configuration contains a single FSC group with an FSC deployed for each volume.

Assigned FSC to client is just to identify the FSC group and any of FSC in this group can be used to transfer files. This configuration with direct user access via direct routing (routing not only to assigned FSC) is sometimes called FCC direct connect configuration.

 

All FCCs and other non-master FSCs download the configuration file from fscA (master FSC ) .Data requests of FCCs can be handled by any of the FSCs.

FSC Cached Configuration

In this configuration, most accessed files are maintained in a FSC cache server and clients access files from this cache server instead of making trips to volume servers every time. It provides improved client performance due to high speed cache server. When user uploads or downloads a file, a copy of file is maintained in cache server while uploading/downloading the files to/from volumes. So, in case of short network outages for volume servers, clients continue accessing files from the cache server.

As explained in last configuration, by default FCCs can still make direct connect with volume servers (bypassing cache server). This direct connect of FCC has to be disabled; else the whole purpose of introducing FSC cache server will be defeated.

FCC_EnableDirectFSCRouting = false

Also Read:

Understanding FSC & FCC

Troubleshooting FSC Failure to Start

FMS Configuration for Remote Clients

Teamcenter Architecture & Communication Between Tiers

Structure Manager in Teamcenter

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