Oracle Traffic Director and Forms Integration

Oracle Traffic Director is a fast, reliable, and scalable layer-7 software load balancer. It is sometimes also used to load balance Forms applications running on multiple Weblogic Managed Servers.

Figure -20 Oracle Traffic Director Load Balancing in a Non-Single Sign-On Setup

Description of "Figure -20 Oracle Traffic Director Load Balancing in a Non-Single Sign-On Setup"

Figure -21 Oracle Traffic Director Load Balancing in a Single Sign-On Setup

Description of "Figure -21 Oracle Traffic Director Load Balancing in a Single Sign-On Setup"

The above two figures assume a setup where a single Oracle Traffic Director instance is load balancing two Application Server tiers. This can be described as following:

1. Oracle Traffic Director instance running on Host A. In a Single Sign-On scenario, WebGate is also installed on Host A.
2. Oracle WebLogic Managed Server on Host B running Oracle Forms application D.
3. Oracle WebLogic Managed Server on Host C running Oracle Forms application D.

Note:

For information about Oracle Traffic Director, see Getting Started with Oracle Traffic Director in Administering Oracle Traffic Director.

Prerequisites

1. Install Oracle Traffic Director.
2. If you are running Forms applications in the Single Sign-On Setup, you must install WebGate on Host A.
3. Ensure that the Forms configuration files are in synchronization across both the Application Server hosts. This means that you must create matching entries in the Forms configuration files across both the Application Server hosts.

Note:

For information about:

• Installing Oracle Traffic Director, see About Installing Oracle Traffic Director.
• Installing WebGate, see About WebGates for Oracle Access Manager.

Setting Up Oracle Traffic Director Configuration

To step up Oracle Traffic Director configuration perform the following steps:

1. Set up a new configuration on the Oracle Traffic Director server running on Host A.
2. Specify Application servers, Host B and Host C, as Origin Servers and provide the Forms WebLogic server hostnames and port numbers.
3. Follow the prompts to complete the steps involved in the creation of the configuration.

   Note:

   Do not modify the default-route properties in the default-route advance settings. These default settings ensure that the session stickiness is maintained, which is essential to run Forms applications in a load-balanced setup.

   For information about creating a configuration, see Managing Configurations in Administering Oracle Traffic Director.

Start the newly created Oracle Traffic Director instance.

Registering Oracle Traffic Director as the Partner Application

You need to register Oracle Traffic Director as the partner application with Oracle Forms if you are setting up Oracle Traffic Director to load balance Oracle Forms in a Single Sign-On scenario as illustrated in Figure -21.

To register Oracle Traffic Director as the partner application, follow the instructions described in Registering web-tier instance as OAM partner application and OAM policy configuration.

Ensure that you provide the Oracle Traffic Director host and port during the partner application registration. You must also copy the generated access agent files, ObAccessClient.xml and cwallet.sso to the WebGate instance running on the Oracle Traffic Director tier on Host A.

Testing the Setup

To test the setup perform the following steps:

1. Using a browser, point it to the Oracle Traffic Director host, and access Oracle Forms application D. Ensure that the application works as expected. Keep the browser window open.
2. Use the Oracle Traffic Director access logs to identify the Oracle WebLogic Managed Server that handled the requests. For example, assume this is Host B, and shut down the WebLogic Managed Server on this host. In this scenario, only the WebLogic server running on Host C will be accessible and available to handle requests.
3. Using the same browser that is running the Oracle Forms client, access Oracle Forms application D again. The request will fail, and the Forms client will lose its session. Notice that Oracle Forms session state is not replicated among Oracle WebLogic Managed Server.
4. Next, clear the browser cookies and open a browser window. Point it to the Oracle Traffic Director host, and access Oracle Forms application D. Oracle Traffic Director will direct the requests to the remaining WebLogic Managed Server running on Host C. Ensure that the application works as expected.
5. Restart the WebLogic Managed Server on Host B.

For information about viewing Oracle Traffic Director access logs, see Access Log in Administering Oracle Traffic Director.