Need a simple JDE web load balancing solution

Remember when the web solution was first introduced there was a component called the Redirector which did a round robin approach to load balancing? It was simply a configuration built into the tool set that directed users to different web instances. If one instance was down or failed, the redirector simply ignored it and directed users to the other instance. It was a simple, documented solution provided within the JDE software.

Now that the technology has evolved, I am looking for something similar: a solution that does simple round robin load balancing across multiple instances. I want my users to go to one web address, but have multiple production instances available. If one web instance is down, just route them to another seamlessly and transparently.

My shop is running E1 8.10, 8.9.5.M1, WebSphere 5.0, Win2003. We are trying to use a Microsoft product called network load balancer and just can’t seem to get it working with our combination of hardware and software. We have two web servers, two production instances on each, yet have no way to seamless provide one web address to our users and have load balancing across the four instances. Our contingency plan is to hand out 4 different web addresses to 4 different groups of users.

Does anyone have a simple solution, preferably one that is built into the JDE toolset, to my dilemma? Thanks in advance.

Fred Norelli

The Websphere clustering is pretty easy (not as easy as OAS).

If possible I'd do this on WAS 6 rather than WAS 5 due to simplicity.

Takes about 15 minutes to configure.


Colin

I agree - use the internal clustering of websphere.

Don't touch microsoft load balancing - its not very workable - I've never really had any luck with that product.

Forget NLB. We tried it and it didn't work well. It broke completely when we moved the two webservers to separate data centers. I hear WebSphere does a good job but with 5.0 it is complex. I hadn't looked at it because we were able to go to a hardware load balancing solution. Very simple.

Yes - go with a hardware solution like a Content Services Switch from Cisco, or try the F5 product. Hardware round-robin solutions work really well and can load balance users based on a number of requirements. I like the F5 product (because its FreeBSD based, and I love FreeBSD) - but I had issues when I tried load balancing the JDE App Servers with it (on the JDE side, not on the F5 side). I'm sure there are others - but check out some of the JDE websites with the Content Services Switch - I have a whitepaper on my website with info.

We are using F5 Load balancer hardware with Least connections algorithm. We are not clustering WAS 5, but we had some issues configuring it with 2 different E1 instances in ports 86 and 88 on the Same Web server. But it works OK, not really impressed. Some times it tries to route to the same server even the server is not responding with OutOfMemory error. The F5 sees only the HTTP Server Component, and if the IHS 2.0 service is stopped, then it routes to other servers using least connections method.

I worked on your site...you were to get a hardware solution, or configure WAS to handle load balancing.

Regards...

Hi,
I think the simpliest way, is to install an horizontal websphere cluster. Be aware, if you wan't to have the full support you'll need to install WebSphere 6, since WebSphere 5 is no longer supported...

Fred,

I would think the simplest solution will be Network deployment for the web server.

We just went live with F5 content Switch. We are load balancing not only Web server but also App server.

Its a pool concepts and we can take any web server or app server out.

We have scripts within F5, which monitor availability of Appserver ( if the E1 service is up or down) and availabbility of Web server ( if Apache is up and or Web server is up )

So far so good. We did lot of automated testing and its workng pretty good for us.

Hi Nick

Can you post the F5 scripts at all ? This is always something that people are interested in, and it'd be very cool to see how different companies loadbalance using an F5 switch. I'm a fan of the F5 - but it used to block the JDE port when we tested it a few years back.

Make sure to modify the scripts to ensure that nobody can identify passwords/company sensitive info by the way !!!!!

Thanks in advance...

[ QUOTE ]
The Websphere clustering is pretty easy (not as easy as OAS).

If possible I'd do this on WAS 6 rather than WAS 5 due to simplicity.


Takes about 15 minutes to configure.



Is there any documentation for doing this?
- for Websphere and OAS


Colin

[/ QUOTE ]

For what its worth, I'll throw my 2-cents worth in.....
We are running WebSphere 5.0.2.3 with Network Deployment. I have 2 app servers running 4 instances each (2 production and 2 training). Through ND I only automatically startup the production instances. We are using DNS to do the round-robin load-balancing between the physical servers (this doesn't work perfectly, but does work pretty well). So balancing occurs with ND via the horizontal instances and with DNS if one of the boxes is down.

The only difficult thing with ND was getting the 1st instance defined, from then on it was just duplication.

Jay

JOn,

I would have to check with my Netowrking folk's if they can provide me that scripts. It falls under their area.

However, we are presently using this within intranet, so we are not that concerned about password and all. We are soon going to move to HTTPS and hopefully this will be resolved.

Team,

We are trying to LB ERP 8.0 SP 24.1 using F5.
Can you please give details on what is required on LB as well as WebSphere 6.0 side for this to work?

Thank you
Manish

You can use SKUDONET load balancer https://www.skudonet.com/ they have a community version totally free and complete for being used with JDEdwards, additionally, they have some articles in their Knowledge base.

I would recommend you to use SKUDONET load balancer, they have a dedicated article for Load balancing JD Edwards and create high availability:
it is supported in the community edition and they solve doubts in the community distribution list.

If we're collecting in this thread, i can only recommend Traefik. Great open source software, used by the big companies out there, very modern interface etc.

...besides your out of the box solution like IBM Websphere HTTP Server or ORACLE HTTP Server which can basically do the same, too.

Everest Software's JDE SSO product includes Load Balancing along with very easy to implement Single Sign On feature.