Software and hardware topologies

 

+
Search Tips   |   Advanced Search

 

  1. Software topology
  2. Hardware topology examples

 

Software topology

WebSphere Portal installs and runs as an application server on the IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS) platform.

  • Each installation of portal requires one installation of IBM WAS.
  • Both the portal and WAS installations must reside on the same machine.
  • Installing multiple portals on a single WAS profile is not supported.

By default, portal uses the internal HTTP transport within WAS. We can optionally configure an external Web server, such as IBM HTTP Server.

By default, portal installs and uses a IBM Cloudscape database to store data such as...

  • user identities
  • credentials
  • access permissions

Cloudscape is not recommended for production and staging environments. Configure portal to use a database such as...

By default, portal uses a Cloudscape-based database user registry for authentication. We can use any of the following...

  • LDAP directory
  • Database user registry
  • Custom user registry

 

Hardware topology examples

WebSphere Application Server supports a wide variety of ways to deploy the portal in the computing environment. Commonly used topologies fall into one of the following broad categories.

Topology Description
Single-machine Compoents are installed on the same machine.
Multimachine Components are physically separated onto different machines.
Multiple database Data is distributed between multiple databases, most being read-only.

This makes it possible to update a system without taking down the Portal Server. Can be used for Single-machine or Multimachine topologies.

Vertical scaling Multiple application servers running portal are created on a single physical machine, usually by creating cluster members.
Horizontal scaling Members of a portal cluster exist on multiple physical machines, effectively and efficiently distributing the workload of a single logical portal image.

HTTP redirector products can also be used to implement horizontal scaling. Clustering is most effective in environments that use horizontal scaling because of the ability to build in redundancy and failover, to add new horizontal cluster members to increase capacity, and to improve scalability by adding heterogeneous systems into the cluster.

HTTP server separation The Web (HTTP) server is located on a different physical machine than WebSphere Application Server and portal.
Demilitarized zone Improves portal security, especially for sensitive back-end resources such as databases.

Many resources and settings that are defined within WAS, like Global Security Settings, DataSources, and so on, are shared across all applications, including the portal installation.

 

Related concepts


Planning considerations
Staging the portal to production

 

Related information


Supported hardware and software