Introduction
The Web container manages the J2EE components, servlets and JSPs that are accessed from the Web.
Traffic for these components is workload managed by configuring clusters within a cell in WAS and then configuring Web servers to access cluster members.
This workload management process also sets up failover and backup servers in the event that one or more of the cluster members should fail or all primary servers fail.
WAS V5.1 supports a variety of Web servers. These Web servers are necessary for directing traffic from users' browsers to the applications running in WebSphere. This is achieved by installing the WebSphere plug-in on the Web servers. As shown in Figure 5-1, the plug-in is a module that runs as part of the Web server process. It acts as a router, deciding what traffic is for WebSphere and what traffic should be handled by the Web server itself.
Figure 5-1 Plug-in components and interactions
The Web server plug-in uses HTTP and HTTPS as its transport protocol between the Web server and WAS. This has been carried over from WebSphere V4.0. However, the WAS V5 plug-in does add some new features, such as:
- Weighted round robin workload management
- Backup servers
In this chapter we will be using a subset of the sample topology described in Figure 7-1 to demonstrate plug-in work load management. This subset is illustrated in Figure 5-2.
Figure 5-2 Topology used in this chapter
WebSphere is a trademark of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.
IBM is a trademark of the IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.