Siebel Deployment Planning Guide > Siebel Architecture Overview >

About the Siebel Gateway

The Siebel Gateway provides the dynamic address registry for Siebel Servers and server components, and also for Siebel Application Interface and other modules, like Siebel Enterprise Cache and Siebel Constraint Engine. For example, at startup, Siebel Server within the Siebel Enterprise Server stores its network address in the Siebel Gateway's nonpersistent address registry.

Siebel Enterprise Server components query the Siebel Gateway address registry for Siebel Server availability and address information. When a Siebel Server shuts down, this information is cleared from the address registry.

The Siebel Application Interface and Siebel Gateway work together to provide Siebel Server load balancing. When a user requests a new application connection, Siebel Application Interface sends a request to Siebel Gateway, which returns a connect string for the least-loaded Application Object Manager from among the Siebel Servers supporting that component. The user session will use this Application Object Manager.

The Siebel Gateway also includes persistent storage in the registry for configuration information for Siebel Server, Siebel Application Interface, and other installable components. This information includes:

• Definitions and assignments of component groups and components
• Operational parameters
• Connectivity information

As this configuration information changes, such as during the configuration of Siebel Enterprise, a Siebel Server, or a Siebel Application Interface, this data is written to the Siebel Gateway registry.

There can be only one Siebel Gateway installed for each environment in which you have created a Siebel Enterprise. Further, you cannot share the same Siebel Gateway across development, test, and production environments.

The Siebel Gateway is usually a candidate for high availability using a cluster configuration. If the primary node in the cluster fails, then the second computer in the Siebel Gateway cluster takes over, minimizing potential downtime.

For information about installation and configuration tasks associated with Siebel Gateway, see the Siebel Installation Guide for the operating system you are using.

It is strongly recommended to install the same set of languages on each server computer in your Siebel Enterprise Server. For more information, see the Siebel Installation Guide for the operating system you are using. See also Siebel Global Deployment Guide.