Learn about continuous operation with OpenEdge

Continuous operation with OpenEdge is the full utilization of OpenEdge software suite to achieve your application architecture goals.

A continuously operational application architecture protects enterprises from lost revenue by keeping their data and applications available, even if access to resources is disrupted. This is a necessity for businesses across the globe. As more enterprises want to extend the availability of their mission-critical applications and data, they are under pressure to ensure the up-time of their systems. Downtime, even if it is a matter of minutes, can result in substantial costs to the enterprise. To ensure the maximum feasible amount of uptime, an enterprise must have several components in their architecture: the ability to scale according to changing requirements and loads, the establishment of replicated sets of characteristics when parts of the application crash, the reduction of maintenance downtime, the increase of error detection and resolution speed, and fast recovery without data loss in the event of unexpected downtime.

By design, OpenEdge offers a set of features, tools, and parameters, both out of the box and configurable, to achieve continuous operation such as database parameters that are modifiable online, database replication, the OpenEdge HealthScanner, and more.

Architecture for OpenEdge continuous operation

The following illustration presents an OpenEdge configuration optimized for continuous operation and monitoring.

This OpenEdge architecture includes the following key components:

• OpenEdge database––OpenEdge databases are designed with continuous operation in mind, and provide ways to update parameters, schemas, and more while online.
• Data replication––Data replication helps you avoid single points of failure by enabling a disaster recovery or a failover site. Data replication ensures the availability of an application, and distributes copies of data to one or more sites for horizontal read scaling. Using database replication is the best way to make your application highly available and fault tolerant. If your production database, database machine, or network becomes unavailable you can quickly transition to the replicated database.
• OpenEdge clients––OpenEdge supports three types of clients that use HTTP networking. Each client uses HTTP networking differently. How these clients communicate with a PAS for OpenEdge instance impacts continuous operations different ways:
  • ABL, Java, .Net, and WebClients employ a point-to-point network connection to a PAS for OpenEdge instance. That point-to-point connection may be load balanced, where each new connection can be directed to any active PAS for OpenEdge instance. However, a client cannot switch to another PAS for OpenEdge instance if the original PAS for OpenEdge instance goes out of service. The client needs to initiate a new connection.
  • HTTP clients access a PAS for OpenEdge instance’s REST, Web, and web applications using connectionless HTTP. Therefore, switching client message destinations between PAS for OpenEdge instances does not impact the continuous operation.
  • SOAP services use either a session-managed or session-free model. The session-managed model uses a point-to-point connection to PAS for OpenEdge instances. The client is disabled until the connection is resumed. The session-free model uses connectionless message delivery of HTTP to take full advantage of continuous operation.
• Progress Application Server (PAS) for OpenEdge––PAS for OpenEdge should be configured for scalability and enabled to work seamlessly with load balancers for continuous operation.
• Load balancer––A full-featured load balancer is a required part of the OpenEdge continuous operation solution. OpenEdge does not provide a load balancer, so finding the correct load balancer with the needed features is crucial. The load balancer redirects traffic from any PAS for OpenEdge instance that runs the risk of becoming over loaded to an instance with less traffic.
• Monitoring tools––To have a continuously operating application, an enterprise must constantly monitor their application's ecosystem, and have a system of alerts to warn about issues. Monitoring the application ecosystem allows an enterprise to observe and act on possible issues before they happen. With OpenEdge, you can monitor your applications with the OpenEdge HealthScanner, OpenEdge Management, and deferred logging.
• (Optional) Docker and Kubernetes with PAS for OpenEdege––Building your applications to run in a Docker container enables you to develop, deploy, and run scalable applications in an isolated environment. Encapsulating applications in a container allows for easy installation and repeatable execution. Kubernetes can be used to deploy, scale and manage containerized applications. Kubernetes can be used to quickly and easily deploy new versions of applications to end users without the need to bring down your system.