How to get ready to install Unica Director?

Overview:

Enterprise applications like Unica Campaign are usually deployed across complex architecture. For example – If the Campaign web application is installed on one machine (or storage), then the Campaign Analytical server (listener) is installed on a separate machine. The Campaign web application is deployed in standalone application server instance or in a clustered application server deployment. This is also possible for the Campaign Analytical server which can be deployed in the clustered environment. Now many of you would be asking; why we are talking about this deployment structure while planning to Install Unica Director. Let me try to explain this. For reference, we will be taking an example of the deployment architecture below to explain the Unica Director Server and Agent installation requirements.
This reference deployment architecture includes a Load Balancer (or webserver), a clustered deployment of the Campaign web application and a clustered installation of the Campaign Analytical Server (listener) components.

Unica Director – Server and Agent:

Unica Director communicates in a server and client topology, the Server and Agent are two different components.

The Server can be installed on any machine, this machine should not be a dedicated system but needs to be in the same subnet as Campaign components are deployed. The Server application provides capabilities like user interface, authentication, job queues, environment management, etc.

The Agent should be installed on the system running the Campaign components, for example, the Agent needs to be installed on the system running Campaign Analytical Server. If the Campaign Analytical server is installed in a cluster, then the Agent needs to be installed on all machines. Also, the agent needs to be installed on a machine running the web application server where Campaign is deployed. If the web application is clustered, then the agent needs to be installed on all machines running web application cluster nodes.

Only one instance of the Server needs to be installed and it can communicate with multiple agent instances. Server and Agent communication happens on the ports mentioned while installing the Server or Agent. This communication can happen over HTTP/s and it is secured with secret token-based authentication. By default, the Server runs on port 9999 and the Agent runs on port 7777. These ports can also be changed after installation, please refer to Director documentation for more details.

Taking an example of reference deployment architecture, the Unica Director server and agent installations can be done as below: In this example – Unica Director Server is installed and configured on a separate machine which is not mandatory and it can be installed on existing Campaign systems as well. Unica Director agent installation is done on each Campaign web application deployment nodes. The agent is also installed on each Campaign analytical server machines.

Sizing:

The Director Agent application does not require major processing, as a regular health check, it keeps on tracking the CPU and Memory usage on the listener machines and whenever any action initiated from the Server agent processes it. The Server application runs quite a few jobs initiated from the user but it is not resource-intensive.
If you have a question on hardware sizing, we will try to answer it with the table below which should help you get started. Please note that the statistics mentioned below are in addition to the existing resource to assure Director application’s smooth operation without impacting the Campaign components running on the same machine.

How to login?

Unica Director enables existing Marketing Platform users to log in to Unica Director.
The user would need to enter the Marketing Platform login URL (https://unicahost/unica) on the Unica Director login page. Enter the Marketing Platform login user id and password to log in.
Please note only valid marketing platform users can be used to login to Director. The users from other directory server providers would not be able to login to the Director.
This will only allow you to log in to Unica Director. To start using Director the next important step is to add Campaign environment details in the Director Server.
The Director Server and Agent communication link are established using the environments module in the application. Stay tuned to understand what is Environment in our next blog.