7 Managing Origin Servers

An origin server is a back-end server to which Oracle Traffic Director forwards requests that it receives from clients, and from which it receives responses to client requests. The origin servers could, for example, be Oracle WebLogic Server instances or Oracle iPlanet Web Server instances. A group of origin servers providing the same service is called an origin server pool.

This chapter describes how to create and manage origin servers. It contains the following sections:

Adding an Origin Server to a Pool

You can add an origin server to an origin-server pool by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Note:

  • When you add an origin server to a pool, you are, in effect, modifying a configuration. So for the updated configuration to take effect in the Oracle Traffic Director instances, you should redeploy the configuration as described in Deploying a Configuration.

  • The CLI examples in this section are shown in shell mode (tadm>). For information about invoking the CLI shell, see Accessing the Command-Line Interface.

Before You Begin

Before you begin adding an origin server to a pool, decide the following:

  • The origin-server pool to which you want to add the origin server.

  • The host name or IP address of the origin server. It is recommended that the IP address that you provide is the InfiniBand interface IP address (IPoIB) or Socket Director Protocol (SDP) address.

    Note:

    SDP is a native Infiniband protocol. With SDP, performance is very specific to work load. Hence, it is important to evaluate and compare the performance with SDP and IPoIB, and then select the one that meets your requirement.

  • The port number at which the origin server listens for requests.

  • Whether the server is a backup origin server.

    Oracle Traffic Director forwards requests to a backup origin server only when the health check indicates that none of the primary origin servers is available.

  • The proportion of the total request load that Oracle Traffic Director should distribute to the origin server. You define this proportion as a weight number that is relative to the weights assigned to the other origin servers in the pool.

    You can use weights to get Oracle Traffic Director to distribute the request load based on the relative capacities of the origin servers in a pool.

    Consider a pool consisting of three origin servers—os1, os2, and os3, with the weights 1, 2, and 2 respectively. The total of the weights assigned to all the servers in the pool is 1+2+2=5. Oracle Traffic Director distributes a fifth (1/5) of the total load to os1, and two-fifths (2/5) of the load to each of os2 and os3.

Adding an Origin Server to a Pool Using the Administration Console

To add an origin server to a pool by using the administration console, do the following:

  1. Log in to the administration console, as described in Accessing the Administration Console.
  2. Click the Configurations button that is situated at the upper left corner of the page.

    A list of the available configurations is displayed.

  3. Select the configuration for which you want to create an origin server.
  4. In the Common Tasks pane, click New Origin Server.

    The New Origin Server wizard starts.

    Figure 7-1 New Origin Server Wizard

    Description of Figure 7-1 follows
    Description of "Figure 7-1 New Origin Server Wizard"
  5. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete creation of the origin-server pool by using the details—origin-server pool, host, port, and so on—that you decided earlier.

    After the origin server is created, the Results screen of the New Origin Server wizard displays a message confirming successful creation of the origin server.

  6. Click Close on the Results screen.

    • The details of the origin server that you just defined are displayed on the Origin Servers page.

    • In addition, the Deployment Pending message is displayed at the top of the main pane. You can either deploy the updated configuration immediately by clicking Deploy Changes, or you can do so later after making further changes as described in Deploying a Configuration.

Adding an Origin Server to a Pool Using the CLI

To add an origin server to a pool, run the create-origin-server command.

For example, the following commands adds soa-app.example.com:80 as origin server os1 in the pool osp1 of the configuration soa.

tadm> create-origin-server --config=soa --origin-server-pool=osp1 soa-app.example.com:80      
OTD-70201 Command 'create-origin-server' ran successfully.

For the updated configuration to take effect, you should deploy it to the Oracle Traffic Director instances by using the deploy-config command.

For more information about create-origin-server, see the Oracle Traffic Director Command-Line Reference or run the command with the --help option.

Viewing a List of Origin Servers

You can view a list of origin servers by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Note:

The CLI examples in this section are shown in shell mode (tadm>). For information about invoking the CLI shell, see Accessing the Command-Line Interface.

Viewing a List of Origin Servers Using the Administration Console

To view a list of origin servers by using the administration console, do the following:

  1. Log in to the administration console, as described in Accessing the Administration Console.
  2. Click the Configurations button that is situated at the upper left corner of the page.

    A list of the available configurations is displayed.

  3. Select the configuration for which you want to view origin servers.
  4. In the navigation pane, expand Origin-Server Pools and select Origin Servers.

    The Origin Servers page is displayed. It shows a list of the origin servers in the selected pool.

You can view and edit the properties of an origin server by clicking on its name.

Viewing a List of Origin Servers Using the CLI

To view a list of origin servers, run the list-origin-servers command as shown in the following example:

tadm> list-origin-servers --config=soa --origin-server-pool=osp1 --verbose --all
name                      weight          enabled         backup
----------------------------------------------------------------
soa-app1.example.com:80   1               true            false
soa-app2.example.com:80   1               true            false
soa-app3.example.com:80   1               true            true

You can view the properties of an origin server in detail by running the get-origin-server-prop command.

For more information about the list-origin-servers and get-origin-server-prop commands, see the Oracle Traffic Director Command-Line Reference or run the command with the --help option.

Modifying an Origin Server

This section describes how you can do the following:

  • Change the properties—host, port, weight, and so on—that you defined while creating the origin server. For more information about those properties, see the "Before You Begin" section.

  • Enable or disable the origin server.

  • Specify the maximum number of connections that the origin server can handle concurrently.

  • Specify the duration (ramp-up time) over which Oracle Traffic Director should increase the request-sending rate to the origin server. You can use this parameter to ensure that the request load, on origin servers that have just come up after being offline, is increased gradually up to the capacity of the server.

You can change the properties of an origin server by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Note:

  • When you change the properties of an origin server in a pool, you are, in effect, modifying a configuration. So for the updated configuration to take effect in the Oracle Traffic Director instances, you should redeploy the configuration as described in Deploying a Configuration.

  • The CLI examples in this section are shown in shell mode (tadm>). For information about invoking the CLI shell, see Accessing the Command-Line Interface.

Changing the Properties of an Origin Server Using the Administration Console

To change the properties of an origin server by using the administration console, do the following:

  1. Log in to the administration console, as described in Accessing the Administration Console.
  2. Click the Configurations button that is situated at the upper left corner of the page.

    A list of the available configurations is displayed.

  3. Select the configuration for which you want to modify an origin server.
  4. In the navigation pane, expand Origin-Server Pools, and select Origin Servers.

    The Origin Servers page is displayed.

  5. Click the name of the origin server that you want to modify.

    The Editing Origin Server dialog box is displayed. In this dialog box, you can do the following:

    • Enable and disable the origin server

    • Change the host and port

    • Change the relative weight

    • Mark the origin server as a backup server

    • Set the maximum number of connections that the origin server can handle concurrently

    • Set the time that Oracle Traffic Director should take to ramp up the request-forwarding rate to the full capacity of the origin server.

  6. Specify the parameters that you want to change.

    On-screen help and prompts are provided for all of the parameters.

    When you change the value in a field or tab out of a text field that you changed, the Save button near the upper right corner of the page is enabled.

    At any time, you can discard the changes by clicking the Reset button.

  7. After making the required changes, click Save.

    • A message, confirming that the updated configuration was saved, is displayed in the Console Messages pane.

    • In addition, the Deployment Pending message is displayed at the top of the main pane. You can either deploy the updated configuration immediately by clicking Deploy Changes, or you can do so later after making further changes as described in Deploying a Configuration.

Changing the Properties of an Origin Server Using the CLI

To change the properties of an origin server, run the set-origin-server-prop command.

For example, the following command changes the relative weight to 2 for the origin server soa-app1.example.com:1900 in the pool osp1 of the configuration soa.

tadm> set-origin-server-prop  --config=soa --origin-server-pool=osp1
 --origin-server=soa-app1.example.com:1900 weight=2
OTD-70201 Command 'set-origin-server-prop' ran successfully.

For the updated configuration to take effect, you should deploy it to the Oracle Traffic Director instances by using the deploy-config command.

For a list of the properties that you can change by using set-origin-server-prop, see the Oracle Traffic Director Command-Line Reference or run the commands with the --help option.

Removing an Origin Server from a Pool

You can remove an origin server from a pool by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Note:

  • When dynamic discovery is enabled (see Configuring an Oracle WebLogic Server Cluster as an Origin-Server Pool), if you delete an origin server that is an Oracle WebLogic Server instance in a cluster, and then reconfigure the Oracle Traffic Director instance, the instance might not start if no valid origin servers remain in the pool.

  • When you remove an origin server from a pool, you are, in effect, modifying a configuration. So for the updated configuration to take effect in the Oracle Traffic Director instances, you should redeploy the configuration as described in Deploying a Configuration.

  • The CLI examples in this section are shown in shell mode (tadm>). For information about invoking the CLI shell, see Accessing the Command-Line Interface.

Removing an Origin Server from a Pool Using the Administration Console

To remove an origin server from a pool by using the administration console, do the following:

  1. Log in to the administration console, as described in Accessing the Administration Console.
  2. Click the Configurations button that is situated at the upper left corner of the page.

    A list of the available configurations is displayed.

  3. Select the configuration for which you want to delete origin servers.
  4. In the navigation pane, expand Origin-Server Pools, expand the pool for which you want to delete origin servers, and select Origin Servers.

    A list of the origin servers in the selected pool is displayed.

  5. Click the Delete icon for the origin server that you want to delete.

    A message is displayed in the Console Message pane confirming that the origin server was deleted.

    In addition, the Deployment Pending message is displayed at the top of the main pane. You can either deploy the updated configuration immediately by clicking Deploy Changes, or you can do so later after making further changes, as described in Deploying a Configuration.

Removing an Origin Server from a Pool Using the CLI

To remove an origin server from a pool, run the delete-origin-server command, as shown in the following example:

tadm> delete-origin-server --config=soa --origin-server-pool=osp1 soa-app2.example.com:1900
OTD-70201 Command 'delete-origin-server' ran successfully.

For the updated configuration to take effect, you should deploy it to the Oracle Traffic Director instances by using the deploy-config command.

For more information about delete-origin-server, see the Oracle Traffic Director Command-Line Reference or run the command with the --help option.