GSA Unification > Nodes Configuration

Use the GSA Unification >Nodes Configuration page to configure the current host to recognize other nodes in a unified environment. Before you enable the unified environment feature on a search appliance, this page is not visible on the Admin Console.

This help page contains the following topics:

• Before Starting these Tasks
• Adding a Node to a Unified Environment
• Editing a Node in a Unified Environment
• Removing a Node from a Unified Environment
• Configuring Mirroring in a Unified Environment
• For More Information

Before Starting these Tasks

Before you configure the current host to recognize remote nodes, ensure that you have accomplished the following tasks:

• Completed the tasks described on the help page for Host Configuration in the section Before Starting these Tasks.
• Enabled the unified environment feature on the current host on the Host Configuration page.
• Configured the current host for the unified environment feature on the Host Configuration page.

Adding a Node to a Unified Environment

Use these instructions to configure the current search appliance to recognize other nodes in a unified environment. You must perform this task on each node you are including in the unified environment. Follow the following guidelines:

• Do not add the current search appliance (that is, the search appliance to which you are currently logged in) to the unified environment on its own Nodes Configuration page.
• On the primary search appliance, add all of the secondary nodes.
• On each of the secondary nodes, add only the primary node.

You can configure multiple unified environments on your network. A particular search appliance can be the primary node in unified environment A and a secondary node in unified environment B. On the Nodes Configuration page for that search appliance, add the search appliances that are secondary nodes in unified environment A and add the search appliance that is the primary node in unified environment B.

To add a node to a unified environment:

1. On the Admin Console, navigate to GSA Unification > Nodes Configuration.
2. In the Add a node to your GSA Unification Network section, click Add.
3. On the drop-down list, designate whether the search appliance you are adding is the primary node or a secondary node.
   • Choose Primary to recognize a search appliance as the primary node in the unified environment. Make this selection on each secondary node.
   • Choose Secondary to recognize a search appliance as a secondary node in the unified environment. Make this selection for each node you add on the primary node
4. Type in the Search Appliance ID of the remote search appliance.
5. Type in the Appliance Hostname or IP address of the remote search appliance.
6. Type in the GSA Unification Network IP Address of the remote search appliance.
7. Type in the Secret Token of the remote search appliance.
8. Click Save.
9. Click the Edit link next to the search appliance you just added.
10. Select a value for the Scoring Bias applied to results served from this node.
11. Type in a Timeout interval.
12. Choose the Remote Front End whose values will be used for serving results.
13. Click Save.

Editing a Node in a Unified Environment

Use these instructions to change the values used to configure a remote node on the current search appliance.

To edit a node:

1. On the Admin Console, navigate to GSA Unification > Nodes Configuration.
2. In the Nodes in Your GSA Unification Network section, click Edit.
3. Edit the values you need to change.
4. Click Save.

Removing a Node from a Unified Environment

When you remove a node from a unified environment, search results from that node are not served with unified results.

To remove a node from a unified environment:

1. On the Admin Console, navigate to GSA Unification > Nodes Configuration.
2. In the Nodes in Your GSA Unification Network section, click the Remove link. A warning dialog box is displayed.
3. Click OK.

Configuring Mirroring in a Unified Environment

The search appliance supports mirroring for a node participating in a unification configuration. For example, suppose your unification configuration contains a primary node A and a secondary node C. You want to add node B as a mirror of node A and node D as a mirror of node C. To accomplish this:

• On node A, add node B as a replica
• On node B, add node A as a primary
• On node C, add node D as a replica
• On node D, add node C as a primary

There is not any automatic failover, so if a node goes down, you have to adjust the topology manually. For example, if node A goes down, you would have to direct the serve traffic to node B while also adding node C as the unification secondary of node B. Similarily, if node C goes down, you would have to add node D as unification secondary of node A.

If you want to set up mirroring, but not in a unified environment, use GSA mirroring in a GSAⁿ configuration. For more information, see "Configuring GSA Mirroring."

To configure mirroring in a unified environment:

1. On the Admin Console for the primary node, navigate to GSA Unification > Nodes Configuration.
2. In the Add a node to your GSA Unification Network section, click Add.
3. On the drop-down list, designate the remote search appliance for mirroring as a Replica node.
4. Type in the Appliance ID of the remote search appliance.
5. Type in the Appliance Hostname or IP address of the remote search appliance.
6. Type in the GSA Unification Network IP Address of the remote search appliance.
7. Type in the Secret Token of the remote search appliance.
8. Click Save.
9. In the Add a node to your GSA Unification Network section, click Add.
10. On the drop-down list, designate the remote search appliance for mirroring as the Primary node.
11. Type in the Appliance ID of the remote search appliance.
12. Type in the Appliance Hostname or IP address of the remote search appliance.
13. Type in the GSA Unification Network IP Address of the remote search appliance.
14. Type in the Secret Token of the remote search appliance.
15. Click Save.

For More Information

For more information on unified environments, see "Configuring Unified Environments," which is linked to the Google Search Appliance help center.