With its latest release, Apache Ignite 2.0 introduced support for DDL, a redesigned off-heap memory architecture, distributed algebra, Spring data integration, support for Hibernate 5, Rocket MQ Integration, as well as plenty of improvements to the currently existing Apache Ignite feature set to enhance speed and performance. Another key feature rolled in is multi-cluster support for Apache Ignite Web Console, which means you can monitor and manage multiple Ignite clusters in parallel from a single instance of Ignite Web console deployed on your system.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to start two separate clusters on your system and connect it to an instance of Ignite Web Console deployed locally.

First, you need to deploy an instance of Ignite Web Console on your system environment. It’s a pretty straightforward process; you can follow the instructions here. I have it deployed on my laptop and this is how it looks in the browser at http://localhost:9000/.

Notice that on the top right corner, it says "No clusters available."

Starting Two Ignite Clusters on a Single Host

After deploying the web console, let’s start two Ignite nodes on two separate clusters on the same machine. For this, we will need two configuration files both pointing to different ports. For example:

Cluster one configuration:

<bean id="ignite.cfg" class="org.apache.ignite.configuration.IgniteConfiguration">
	<property name="igniteInstanceName" value="FirstCluster" />
	<property name="cacheConfiguration">
		<!—provide cache configuration here -->
	</property>
	<!-- Explicitly configure TCP discovery SPI to provide list of initial nodes. -->
	<property name="discoverySpi">
		<bean class="org.apache.ignite.spi.discovery.tcp.TcpDiscoverySpi">
			<!-- Initial local port to listen to. -->
			<property name="localPort" value="48500"/>
			<!-- Changing local port range. This is an optional action. -->
			<property name="localPortRange" value="20"/>
			<!-- Setting up IP finder for this cluster -->
			<property name="ipFinder">
				<bean class="org.apache.ignite.spi.discovery.tcp.ipfinder.vm.TcpDiscoveryVmIpFinder">
					<property name="addresses">
						<list>
							<!-- Addresses and port range of the nodes from the first cluster.
              127.0.0.1 can be replaced with actual IP addresses or host names. 
              Port range is optional. -->
							<value>127.0.0.1:48500..48520</value>
						</list>
					</property>
				</bean>
			</property>
		</bean>
	</property>
	<!-- Explicitly configure TCP communication SPI changing local
  port number for the nodes from the first cluster. -->
	<property name="communicationSpi">
		<bean class="org.apache.ignite.spi.communication.tcp.TcpCommunicationSpi">
			<property name="localPort" value="48100"/>
		</bean>
	</property>
</bean>

Cluster two configuration:

<bean id="ignite.cfg" class="org.apache.ignite.configuration.IgniteConfiguration">
	<property name="igniteInstanceName" value="SecondCluster" />
	<property name="cacheConfiguration">
		<!—provide cache configuration here -->
	</property>
	<!-- Explicitly configure TCP discovery SPI to provide list of initial nodes. -->
	<property name="discoverySpi">
		<bean class="org.apache.ignite.spi.discovery.tcp.TcpDiscoverySpi">
			<!-- Initial local port to listen to. -->
			<property name="localPort" value="49500"/>
			<!-- Changing local port range. This is an optional action. -->
			<property name="localPortRange" value="20"/>
			<!-- Setting up IP finder for this cluster -->
			<property name="ipFinder">
				<bean class="org.apache.ignite.spi.discovery.tcp.ipfinder.vm.TcpDiscoveryVmIpFinder">
					<property name="addresses">
						<list>
							<!--
                                Addresses and port range of the nodes from the second
                                cluster.
                                127.0.0.1 can be replaced with actual IP addresses or
                                host names. Port range is optional.
                            -->
							<value>127.0.0.1:49500..49520</value>
						</list>
					</property>
				</bean>
			</property>
		</bean>
	</property>
	<!--
        Explicitly configure TCP communication SPI changing local port number 
        for the nodes from the second cluster.
    -->
	<property name="communicationSpi">
		<bean class="org.apache.ignite.spi.communication.tcp.TcpCommunicationSpi">
			<property name="localPort" value="49100"/>
		</bean>
	</property>
</bean>

Notice the change in port range and local port value. Also, note that for this example, I have installed Apache Ignite version 2.0 and placed these configuration files in the ${IGNITE_HOME}/examples/config/ directory.

Start Cluster One

In the terminal window of my laptop, I started my first Ignite cluster with the above configuration, using the following command:

./ignite.sh -v -J-DIGNITE_JETTY_PORT=8090 examples/config/first-cluster.xml

As you can see in the image below, I’ve started the first Ignite cluster with one node. You can start as many nodes as you like with the same command.

Start Cluster Two

Similarly, in another terminal window of my laptop, I’ve started my second Ignite cluster using the following command:

./ignite.sh -v -J-DIGNITE_JETTY_PORT=9090 examples/config/second-cluster.xml

Note that we need to set different values for the JETTY_PORT parameter because we are starting the nodes on a single host.

Connecting Web Console to Clusters

To connect the Web Console to Ignite clusters, we need to run Ignite Web Agent. Ignite Web Agent is a standalone Java application that acts as a proxy between the Web Console and the Ignite Cluster.

To enable multi-cluster support on a single host, I have started two web agents in the terminal windows of my laptop. Each web agent connects to a running cluster started above, as well as the Web Console. To do this, copy and unzip ignite-web-agent-2.0.0 from the $IGNITE_HOME/modules/web-console/web-agent/target directory and in a new terminal, window type the following:

./ignite-web-agent.sh --node-uri http://localhost:8090

The above command will connect the web agent to the first cluster, as shown below:

Similarly, start the second web agent to connect to the second cluster:

./ignite-web-agent.sh --node-uri http://localhost:9090

As you can see below, the second web agent is connected to the second cluster.

Now that the everything is up and running, go back to the Web Console page on the browser. You can see that now there are two clusters connected to the web console:

That’s it! Once the Web Console is connected to the clusters, you can monitor them or run SQL queries on the data stored on these clusters and monitor their (queries’) performance — all through a single Ignite Web Console instance. For more information, see the Apache Ignite Web Console documentation.