Set an intermediary node for Web services transactions

Intermediary nodes allow the exchange of Web Services Atomic Transaction (WS-AT) and Web Services Business Activity (WS-BA) protocol messages across firewalls and outside the WAS domain. You configure an intermediary node to specify which WebSphere Application servers the node routes requests to.

 

1. Decide what type of intermediary node to configure: a Proxy Server for IBM WAS, an HTTP server, or both.

2. Perform one of the following steps, according to the choice you made in the previous step.

   • If creating an intermediary node that is a Proxy Server for IBM WAS, follow the instructions in Set up the proxy server and follow-on topics, ensuring that you enable Web services support on the proxy server.

   • If creating an intermediary node that is an HTTP server, configure the HTTP server so that it routes WS-AT and WS-BA protocol messages to the appropriate WAS, rather than processing them itself, as follows.

     1. Allocate a set of unique virtual hosts to the HTTP server; one virtual host for each WAS that you want the HTTP server to communicate with.

     2. In the HTTP server, map each virtual host to a WAS. For example, we might allocate a virtual host name of vhost1 to the HTTP server, then within the HTTP server, map vhost1 to a WAS called server1.

     See the associated example subtopic for details of the configuration XML for IBM HTTP server.

   • If using both a Proxy Server for IBM WAS and an HTTP server...

     1. Follow the instructions in Set up the proxy server and follow-on topics, ensuring that you enable Web services support on the proxy server.

     2. Set the HTTP server to route requests to the proxy server, as described in Routing requests from a plug-in to a proxy server.

     3. Additionally, configure the HTTP server so that it routes WS-AT and WS-BA requests that are targeted at WAS to the proxy, rather than processing them itself. See the associated example for details of the configuration XML for IBM HTTP server.

 

Results

You configured the intermediary node ready for use by WAS.

 

Next steps

Set WAS to use the intermediary node by specifying, for each server, the appropriate virtual host of the intermediary node.

Example: Set IBM HTTP server as an intermediary node for Web services transactions

Next topic: Enable WAS to use an intermediary node for Web services transactions

 

Related concepts

Web Services transactions, high availability, firewalls and intermediary nodes
Use WS-Transaction policy to coordinate transactions or business activities for Web services

 

Related tasks

Use the transaction service
Create a proxy server
Routing requests from a plug-in to a proxy server

 

Related

Proxy server settings