Configure 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 WebSphere Application Server, an HTTP server, or both.

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

   • For an intermediary node that is a Proxy Server for IBM WebSphere Application Server, follow the instructions in Proxy server setup and follow-on topics, ensuring that you enable web services support on the proxy server.

   • For 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 WebSphere Application Server, rather than processing them itself, as follows.

     1. Allocate a set of unique virtual hosts to the HTTP server; one virtual host for each WebSphere Application Server we want the HTTP server to communicate with.

     2. In the HTTP server, map each virtual host to a WAS. For example, you 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 we are using both a Proxy Server for IBM WebSphere Application Server and an HTTP server...

     1. Follow the instructions in Proxy server setup and follow-on topics, ensuring that you enable web services support on the proxy server.

     2. Configure the HTTP server to route requests to the proxy server, as described in Route 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 WebSphere Application Server 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 WebSphere Application Server.

What to do next

Configure WebSphere Application Server to use the intermediary node by specifying, for each server, the appropriate virtual host of the intermediary node.

Subtopics

• Example: Configure IBM HTTP server as an intermediary node for web services transactions
  We can use an HTTP server intermediary nodes to enable the exchange of Web Services Atomic Transaction and Web Services Business Activity protocol messages across firewalls and outside the WAS domain. For IBM HTTP server, you achieve this behavior by modifying the plugin-cfg.xml file of the IBM HTTP server node.

Next topic: Enable WebSphere Application Server to use an intermediary node for web services transactions

Related concepts

Web services transactions, high availability, firewalls and intermediary nodes

Related tasks

Use the transaction service

Proxy server setup

Create a proxy server

Route requests from a plug-in to a proxy server

Proxy server settings