Do new OpenShift pods join the NCache cluster automatically?

No. Increasing the replica count in OpenShift only scales the underlying infrastructure. New pods must be manually added to the cache cluster via the NCache Management Center to participate in data storage and operations.

How do I scale NCache pods via the OpenShift CLI?

You can use the command 'oc scale deployments/ncache --replicas ' to increase the pod count through the command line tool.

Where can I verify that new servers have joined the cache?

On successful addition, you can verify the status of the new cache server nodes through the NCache Management Center or the NCache Monitor tool.

Adding Cache Servers in OpenShift at Runtime

NCache features a scalable architecture that allows you to enhance application capacity by adding cache server pods at runtime. In Red Hat OpenShift, you can dynamically scale your cluster using the OpenShift Web Console, Command line tool, or YAML configurations. This two-step process involves increasing the pod replica count and then registering the new nodes into the cache cluster to achieve linear scalability. Following are the details:

Using OpenShift Portal

Go to the Deployments section under the Workloads tab.
From the deployments' page, which displays all the NCache deployments, click on the three dots button against the server-side deployment (which in this case is ncache).

Add Cache Servers

Click on the Edit Count button. It lets you increase the number of replica pods in your cache cluster. Click on the + button to increase the replica count.

Increase replica count

Using Command Line Tool

In order to increase the pods' replica count through the OpenShift command line tool, run the following command:

Here the name of the server-side deployment is ncache, as created previously.

oc scale deployments/ncache --replicas number_of_increased_server_nodes

Manually Editing Configuration File

You can also edit the ncache.yaml file containing the server-side deployments.

In the YAML file, against the replicas under the spec tag, mention the number of replicas according to the requirement.
Run the following command after modifying the YAML file.

oc apply -f ncache.yaml

Important

Increasing the replica count in OpenShift only scales the underlying infrastructure; new pods do not join the cache cluster automatically and must be added via the NCache Management Center.

Add Server Nodes to Cache

However, by increasing the pod count, a pod is created but does not become a part of the cache automatically. In order to increase cache servers at runtime:

Access the NCache Management Center from the Location tab in the Routes section.
Follow the steps mentioned in Add Server Nodes in order to add server nodes at runtime.
On successful addition of cache servers, verify through the NCache Management Center or the NCache Monitor.