Replication domain

A replication domain is a collection of replicator entry instances (replicators) used by clusters or individual servers within a cell.

All replicators within a replication domain connect with each other, forming a network of replicators.

The default is to define a replication domain for a cluster when creating the cluster. However, replication domains can span across clusters.

Global default settings apply to all replication use for a given replication domain across a cell. Most default settings tune and control the behavior of replicator entries in managed servers across the cell. Such default settings control the use of encryption or the serialization and transferring of objects. Some default settings tune and control how specific WebSphere Application Server functions (for example, session manager and dynamic caching) leverage replication, such as session use of partitions.

For situations that require settings values other than the default, change the values for a given replication domain on the internal replication domain page accessed by clicking Global Replication Settings. Settings include various resource allocation, replication strategies (such as grouping or partitioning) and methods, as well as some security related items.

If you are using replication for HttpSession fail over, you might need to filter where the session replicates to. For example, only replicate to two places out of many. The global default settings define the partition size or number of groups and the session manager settings define the groups to which a particular instance belongs.

Filtering is less important if you are using replication to distribute information on invalid data and actual cached data maintained by a Web container's dynamic caching. Replication does not occur for fail over as much as for data synchronization across a cluster or cell when you will likely want to avoid expensive costs for generating data potentially needed across those various servers.

Note that you can filter or segment by using multiple replication domains.