Teamcenter FMS Overview

File Management System (FMS) is one of the Teamcenter component for managing files or vault in Teamcenter. FMS is responsible for all transaction related to files from Teamcenter server and client. In this blog we will discuss the basic architecture of FMS and its interaction with Teamcenter Application.

FMS Overview:

FMS is independent tool which run as service in server (as FSC) and client machine (as FCC). Teamcenter Application Tier and Client Tier interact with FMS framework through HTTP or HTTPS protocol. The two components of FMS are FMS server cache (FSC) and FMS client Cache. As name suggest FSC is service running in server side which basically cache file in server and serves multiple user request where as FMS client cache work in client machine where it serve request for single user and also interact with FSC for getting latest or new files from server.

Architecture of FMS:

As discussed in FMS Overview, FMS has two components: FSC and FCC. For basic installation you usually have one FSC and multiple FCC based on number of user using the Teamcenter Client. Each of portal clients will have one FCC running on client machine. But in production Environment where user can be in multiple geographical location or number of user are so high that single FSC can’t service so many users. Also if volumes are mounted in different server then also we required FSC on each volume server as FSC is must for each of the volume server. Hence we required to have multiple FSC running in different server to server different geography or set of user or volume server. This multiple FSC server are distributed in such a way that they can be near to each of geographical location.  Due to multiple FSC server architect we then required to define one FSC server as master for managing request and routing to different FSC server. The below diagram shows FMS architecture.

FMS Configuration

Configuration of FMS is managed through xml files. Basically there are three types of Files

·         FMS Master

·         FSC

·         FCC

FMS master configuration file is master configuration file resides in master FSC server. FMS master configuration file which define various FSC sites in cluster or FSC Group. Apart from FSC information it may information of Volumes related to FSC. It will also have default configuration information for FSC and FCC which can be override by respective configuration

FSC configuration file is installed in each of the FSC server. FSC configuration basically contain two main elements

FMSMaster : Defines FMS master location from where FMS Master Configuration file can be read by FSC. FMS Master information help FSC to route the file request in case it doesn’t resides in it volume or cache.

FSC: Defined detail of installed FSC in server. In has different parameter which defines files transfer characteristic as well error and log information. Also it has parameter related to FSC cache for files as well cache location. The parameter vale basically decided based on load, file size, performance requirement as well overall FSC architecture.

FCC configuration installed in each client. It has two main elements

fccdefault : This override FCC configuration from FSC. This has various configuration parameter related to client cache and request.

parentfsc : This define FSC which FCC refer to for downloading FMS configuration. You can have multiple FSC defined as a backup for failover.

Communication Flow between FMS and Teamcenter :

Below is the process for communication between Teamcenter and FMS.

1.       User try to retrieve file from dataset.

2.       Whenever there is any request of file in teamcenter by user, application server forward the request to FMS for retrieving file from Vault.

3.       FMS create a FMS ticket corresponding to file retrieval from vault. FMS ticket is sent to client end which then request to FMS with FMS Ticket.

4.       FMS request is routed to FCC installed in client site for File retrieval.

5.       FCC check if the file cached in FCC and not modified. Modification check of file is done through concept of GUID which is associated with every file in Teamcenter. GUID is a business neutral identifier for file contents, to determine when to pull a file from its local cache. Every file in a Teamcenter vault has a single file GUID associated with every replicated copy of the file. Any change in File results in having a new GUID for the file. In this way FCC check for modification.

6.       If file doesn’t resides in FCC or changes, then FCC sent request to FSC associated with the site id. The priority defines FSC request sequence if the FCC is configured with multiple FSC for given sites id.

7.       FSC check if files is cached in its own server and belong to its own volume. Otherwise it will forward it to corresponding FSC. The other FSC site information its retrieve from FMS Master config file.

8.       FSC sent the file to FCC which in turn route it to client request.

The below diagram depict the overall flow of  FMS request.

Hope this will help to understand FMS working and configuration.

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