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iPlanet Application Server Installation Guide



Chapter 1   Getting Started


This chapter provides the information to correlate your usage goals for iPlanetTM Application Server with the installation option that best suits those goals. In addition, it contains an overview of iPlanet Application Server components.

This chapter includes the following topics:

Read this chapter before installing iPlanet Application Server. Check the release notes for the latest updates to these instructions at:

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/ias.html



iPlanet Application Server Features


This section discusses the features you should consider when planning to integrate iPlanet Application Server into your environment. The configurations which you use to achieve your goals may affect where you install iPlanet Application Server and how you configure it after installation. Although some configuration is done during installation by entering required settings (especially while using the custom installation), you should plan on doing most of the configuration after installation is complete, using the iPlanet Application Server Administration Tool.

This section includes the following topics:


High Scalability

When a system can incrementally increase the capacity, capability, throughput and workload as the number of users increase, it is known as a highly scalable system. There are two categories of scalability available within iPlanet Application Server:

  • Vertical scaling — focuses on loading up a single powerful machine to take full advantage of its resources.

  • Horizontal scaling — adds several less powerful machines to increase performance.

iPlanet Application Server's scalable architecture allows applications to be developed to meet the needs of initial deployment, and later to be scaled to meet heavier demands as business needs grow. iPlanet Application Server applications can scale dynamically to support massive number of users. The Distributed Data Synchronization (DSync) mechanism in iPlanet Application Server allows the ability to dynamically add servers and new instances of application components.


High Performance

iPlanet Application Server can support a high volume of concurrent users without affecting the throughput. The following features contribute to high performance:

  • Multi-threaded capabilities — Supports the multi-threading capabilities of the host operating system.

    An application can optimize performance by processing requests on multiple threads, which maximizes CPU resource utilization.

  • Dynamic load balancing — Distributes requests among instances of application servers to avoid any one or more of the servers being underutilized, or overutilized while others are available.

    iPlanet Application Server offers several load balancing methods, including server load, response time, round robin and weighted round robin mechanisms. For more information see, "Balancing User-Request Loads" in the the iPlanet Application Server Administrator's Guide.

  • Application partitioning — Allows components to be distributed across servers to accommodate heavier loads.

    iPlanet Application Server architecture supports application partitioning, which allows logic to be distributed across servers as an application scales to accommodate heavier loads. Using iPlanet Application Server Administration Tool, system administrators can partition an application into functional areas.

  • Resource pooling and caching — Avoids unnecessary time spent on creating and closing connections as well as on retrieving frequently accessed results by:

    • Connection caching and pooling — To improve performance, iPlanet Application Server caches database connections so that commonly used, existing connections are re-used rather than re-established each time. Connection caching avoids the overhead involved in creating a new database connection for each request.

    • Results Caching — iPlanet Application Server improves application performance by caching the results of application logic execution. Developers can optionally enable this feature in their applications.

    • JSP Caching — iPlanet Application Server provides this new feature, which aids in the development of compositional JSPs. This provides functionality to cache JSPs within the Java engine, making it possible to have a master JSP which includes multiple JSPs (similar to a portal page), each of which can be cached using different cache criteria. The JSP caching feature is in addition to result caching.

  • Data Streaming — Moves data more quickly, providing results sooner.

    iPlanet Application Server provides data streaming that allows users to begin viewing results of requests sooner, rather than wait until the operation has been completely processed. Application developers can explicitly control what data is streamed, or allow the system to provide automatic streaming.

  • Optimized Web Server communication — Speeds application performance through tighter integration with web servers.

    Web Server integration occurs through the Web Connector Plug-ins and corresponding listeners. iPlanet Application Server supports NSAPI, ISAPI, APACHEAPI, and optimized CGI for iPlanet, Microsoft, and CGI-compatible Web servers, respectively.

Other factors affecting application performance include network topology, network and server hardware, database architecture, and application programming. For more information see iPlanet Application Server Performance News Group at:

snews://secnews.netscape.com/iplanet.ias.perf


High Availability via Failover

iPlanet Application Server can support operations that run 24 hours per day, and seven days per week (24 by 7). The main factor to consider while configuring a highly available iPlanet Application Server installation is the failover capability.

iPlanet Application Server provides a highly available and reliable solution through the use of load balancing and dynamic failover (also called failure recovery). iPlanet Application Server can distribute all or part of an application across multiple servers. As a result, if one server goes down, the other servers can continue to handle requests. iPlanet Application Server minimizes downtime by providing automatic application distributed user-session information and distributed application-state information. Information is maintained as long as at least one iPlanet Application Server installation is still running in a cluster with the server that crashed.

iPlanet Application Server features a set of failover capabilities that promote application availability, including:

  • Stateful Session Bean failover — If there are unexpected fatal problems with the server, the bean fails over to another server. Supporting failover for stateful session beans is an iPlanet Application Server value-added feature. J2EE applications do not need any modification to support this feature.

  • Rich Client failover — The Rich Client CORBA Executive Service (CXS) acts as a bridge between Rich Clients that use the Internet Inter-Object Protocol (IIOP) and the EJBs on iPlanet Application Server's Java engine(s). If the CXS server within iPlanet Application Server crashes, the state of the bridge objects for all EJBs are restored to that before the crash. By eliminating single points of failure, iPlanet Application Server offers maximum application availability.


Security

To prevent unauthorized access to business logic, resources, and data, the main factor to consider are the authentication and authorization mechanisms. These mechanisms can be role-based, certificate-based, or form-based authentication.

iPlanet Application Server supports all J2EE security requirements, including role-based authentication, certificate authentication, and form-based authentication. iPlanet Application Server supports the EJB v1.1 security model and the Java Servlet v2.2 security model.

iPlanet Application Server also provides secure web server communication and supports SSL, HTTPS, and HTTP challenge-response authentication to clients. To bridge the security gap between browsers and data sources, iPlanet Application Server supports user authentication, cookies, and database access controls for the secure handling of transactional operations. Event logging and tracking enables detection of, and protection against, unauthorized access.

iPlanet Application Server features a set of security features that include:

  • Single sign-on across all applications on iPlanet Application Server

  • Security for Rich Clients

  • XML-based role mapping information. Use the iPlanet Application Server GUI-based deployment tool to build the XML files that contain security information

  • LDAP-based authentication


Enterprise System and Database Connectivity

iPlanet Application Server has the ability to interface with external databases and enterprise information systems. iPlanet Application Server provides developers with native database drivers, JDBC support, and the Unified Integration Framework API, which provides heterogeneous transactions - spanning multiple vendor databases.

iPlanet Application Server provides support for all JDBC database drivers conforming to the Java Software JDBC 2.0 API with Extensions. iPlanet Application Server certifies JDBC drivers for:

  • Oracle

  • DB2

  • Informix

  • Sybase

  • SQL Server (on Windows only)

iPlanet Application Server provides JDBC connectivity through an iPlanet Application Server implementation of JDBC. This implementation supports both heterogeneous and global transactions. Local transactions are native to a database and are restricted within a single process. Local and global transactions are managed and coordinated by the Transaction Manager built into iPlanet Application Server.


Enterprise-wide Manageability

By using the iPlanet Application Server Administration Tool, you can change the system configuration without interrupting the operation of the system or disrupting service to clients. The Java-based iPlanet Application Server Administration Tool enables local and remote monitoring and management of multiple Application Servers and distributed applications. The following features enable this:

  • Remote administration — remotely configuring the server and its applications.

  • Automatic detection and restart of failed servers and processes

  • Real-time monitoring of system events and performance

  • Event notification system that you can configure to run a script and send an email message about critical situations

  • Application management and partitioning

  • Fine tuning of applications for optimal performance

  • Setup security roles and access control lists

  • Transaction Management features for local or global transactions


Cross-platform Portability

iPlanet Application Server provides developers the flexibility to develop and deploy on different hardware platforms.

iPlanet Application Server is available on a variety of hardware platforms. These include:

  • Microsoft Windows NT SP6a or Windows 2000 Professional

  • Sun® SPARCTM running SolarisTM 2.6 or Solaris 8

  • Hewlett Packard HP-UX 11.0

  • IBM® AIX 4.3.3



Overview of Server Components

iPlanet Application Server includes the iPlanet Console, the Administration Server, the (optional) Web Connector plug-in, the Directory Server, iPlanet Application Server Deployment Tool, and the Administration Tool. Their relationship to the three tier and J2EE computing model is shown in Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1    iPlanet Application Server is at the core of the three tier computing model

This section includes the following topics:


iPlanet Console

The iPlanet Console performs common server administration functions such as stopping and starting servers, installing new server instances, and managing user and group information through the LDAP services of the Directory Server. The console can be installed with iPlanet Application Server or by itself. When installed as a standalone application, you can use it to manage remote servers from any machine on your network.


Administration Servers

When you install iPlanet Application Server, you install its Administration Server also. The iPlanet Application Server's Administration Server is used internally by the Administration Tool and Deployment Tool but is not used directly by system administrators.

In addition, when you install the iPlanet Console, its Administration Server is installed. Like the iPlanet Application Server's Administration Server, this server is used internally by the iPlanet Console.


Core Application Server Components


Web Connector Plug-In

The Web Connector plug-in enables communication between iPlanet Application Server and a Web server. When you install iPlanet Application Server, your Web server is automatically configured for the Web Connector plug-in. This means that all necessary directories and settings on the Web server are updated.

If you have problems with the connection between iPlanet Application Server and the Web Connector plug-in, see the iPlanet Application Server Administrator's Guide for more information.


iPlanet Application Server Administration Tool

The iPlanet Application Server Administration Tool is a stand-alone Java application with a graphical user interface that allows you to administer one or more instances of iPlanet Application Server.


iPlanet Application Server Deployment Tool

The iPlanet Application Server Deployment Tool allows you to package and deploy your J2EE applications. Like the Administration Tool, the Deployment Tool is also a stand-alone Java application with a graphical user interface.


iPlanet Directory Server

Your iPlanet Application Server and other directory-enabled applications use the iPlanet Directory Server as a common, network-accessible location for storing shared data such as user and group identification, server identification, and access control information. The most well known of the Directory Server's service is the Distinguished Name Service (DNS).

The iPlanet Directory Server provides global directory services, meaning, it provides information to a wide variety of applications. A global directory service is a single, centralized repository of directory information that any application can access through network-based communication between the applications and the directory. iPlanet Directory Server uses LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) to give applications access to its global directory service. The LDAP protocol enables iPlanet Directory Server to scale to millions of entries for a modest investment in hardware and network infrastructure.


Note iPlanet Directory Server runs as the slapd service on Windows, and ns-slapd on Solaris.


iPlanet Directory Server installed along with the Application Server, is configured to store two types of information: configuration information and authentication information. As you install iPlanet Application Server, you set up the Directory Server Data Information Tree (DIT), which has branches for this information. For more information see the iPlanet Directory Server Installation Guide at: http://docs.iplanet.com

The configuration directory is the part of Directory Server used to store the Application Server's configuration information. It contains the data tree, o=NetscapeRoot, used by the iPlanet Application Server to store the configuration settings under the suffix that you set up to identify your organization. Multiple server installations can store their configuration settings in this configuration directory.

If you install Directory Server component with the iPlanet Application Server, you must designate this installation of Directory Server as the configuration directory, even if another installation of directory server already exists at your site.

For an overview of the various functions of Directory Server, see the iPlanet Directory Server Installation Guide.


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Copyright © 2002 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Last Updated March 12, 2002