Server rename

This topic provides an overview of the server rename process and the implications of renaming the server.
A server rename is defined as changing the public URL for the Jazz™ Team Server and one or more of its registered applications, after those applications are deployed. The URL change can include any or all of the following components: protocol, hostname, domain, port, or context root. An example of a public URL for a Jazz Team Server would be the string https://relm01.mycompany.com:9443/jts.
Important: In order for a Jazz Team Server or Jazz application server to support a server rename, all the applications on that server must be participants in the server rename.

The Jazz Team Server and Rational® Engineering Lifecycle Manager applications use links to store relationships between stored artifacts that may span applications or systems, and to communicate with each other and with non-Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager applications. Server rename remaps existing URLs to new URLs to preserve the integrity of most links. Without the remapping, those links would be broken.

Note: There are many links that are outside the control of the Jazz Team Server and the Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager applications. The following types of links are not covered in the rename and would be broken:

Risks and precautions

Performing a server rename is not without risk, particularly if the Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager deployment includes integrations to other non-Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager applications. Any change to a hostname has the potential to break links in the data or to prevent Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager products from operating correctly.

If it is necessary to make changes to your topology, the preferred approach is to always do so in a way that maintains a stable URL, such as using DNS to route the host name to a different machine, or using a reverse proxy or virtual hosts. Where this is not possible, you can use server rename.

The following precautionary steps are recommended before you perform a server rename:

Software version requirements

Server rename is only supported for Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager v4.0.4 or later.

What parts of the URL can be renamed?

Renaming a Jazz Team Server or the Rational Engineering Lifecycle Manager applications requires a remapping of the URLs that are stored in Jazz Team Server resources. You can rename the entire URL prefix, which includes all parts of the URL through the context root, but does not include the context path of a resource. Specifically, you can rename the scheme (or protocol), host, domain, port, and context root.

For example, suppose you want to rename the following old URL in a pilot deployment, which is moving to a centrally managed data center:

Table 1. Parts of the URL that can be remapped in a server rename
Part of URI Example Comments
Scheme/Protocol http, https, ftp, Remote Connection URL

Can be changed but using http is strongly discouraged. If changing from https to http or vice versa, it will be necessary to disable or enable security settings.

For the Remote Connection URLs that are used with the lab management features of Quality Management, be sure to include all schemes (Remote Desktop/VNC/FTP/HTTP/Telnet).

Host/Domain myhost.mydomain.com Use the fully-qualified hostname.
Port 9443 Can be changed but you will need to update the port information in the application server. You can also use the default port by not specifying a port in the URL. See Mapping file for server rename for details about using the default port.
Context root /jts /relm, /sparql, /lqe, /admin To change the context root, you will need to perform some extra steps before you perform the rename. See Changing the context root for details.

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