Server Architecture

TSM consists of multiple administrative processes which manage Tableau Server.

The six main TSM processes are Controller, Coordination Services, Agent, Licensing, Client File Service, and Service Manager (highlighted in navy blue). These processes run continuously after TSM is initialized, even when the rest of Tableau Server is offline.

The TSM Services interact with the Application Processes (highlighted in teal) to start, stop, restart, configure, and check status of the individual processes running on Tableau Server.

In addition to the always running TSM processes, there are also three new maintenance processes: Backup/Restore, DB Maintenance, and Site Import/Export (highlighted in orange).These processes are usually stopped unless performing maintenance tasks such as Taking a Backup or Restoring a Backup.

How does TSM work?

Clients such as the TSM Web UI, CLI, or custom automation written by Server Administrators connect via the REST API to the Controller which is the “brains” of the TSM services.

Controller will orchestrate the configuration and topology changes. These changes are persisted and stored in the Coordination Service which serves as the single source of truth across the system. For this reason, it is critical to Coordination Service to be redundant and maintain quorum for High Availability (HA).

Agent which runs on each node of the cluster will monitor the Coordination Service for changes and delivers these new configurations or deploy/remove processes. The Agent also monitors the individual processes for status and reports this to the Coordination Service.

Tableau Server Processes

Server Processes

Tableau Server Processes

TSM Processes

TSM Maintenance Processes

Tableau Process Flows

Publishing an Extract

Refresh an Extract

Live Connection Flow