Understanding HTTP plug-in failover in a clustered environment

Problem(Abstract)

After setting up the HTTP plug-in for load balancing in a clustered IBM® WebSphere® environment, the HTTP plug-in is not performing failover in a timely manner or at all when a cluster member becomes unavailable.

Cause

In most cases, the preceding behavior is observed because of a misunderstanding of how HTTP plug-in failover works or might be due to an improper configuration. Also, the type of Web server (multi-threaded versus single threaded) being used can affect this behaviour.

Understanding HTTP plug-in failover in a clustered environment

Deliver an exceptional mobile web experience using WebSphere Portal and IBM Worklight V6.0, Part 1: Integrating a hybrid mobile application with WebSphere Portal pages

Summary

IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM's Exceptional Web Experience solutions have been the market leader in web experience for more than a decade. IBM Worklight is a new, complete mobile enterprise application platform for delivering native, hybrid, and web applications. This article explains how WebSphere Portal and Worklight together enable enterprise users to provide multi-channel site support to their web communities. An exercise using IBM Worklight Developer Edition 6.0 to build a hybrid Android application for viewing WebSphere Portal pages is included.

Introduction

The mobile channel has become a critical and strategic channel for sales, marketing, and more for many – if not most industries. As businesses manage their company's brand through web sites, a common challenge has become how to deliver content and applications to mobile devices.

Before looking at the intersection of IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Worklight, it's important to understand the difference between a website and an application:

• A website aggregates web content and multiple web applications into a single user experience and works across multiple channels, including desktop browser, kiosk, smartphones, and tablets. A simple example might be your favorite airline's website. They probably have a mobile website, too, which supports phones and tablets. WebSphere Portal is the right platform for building a website.
• A web application is custom-built and often targets specific tasks. For example, your favorite airline app from an app store that lets you book a flight or reserve a seat is an example of a web application. It usually contains a subset of the website's features, targeted to what you can practically do on the device. IBM WebSphere Application Server is the right option for delivering standalone web applications. IBM Worklight provides the ability to create both native and hybrid applications, and you can use either WebSphere Application Server as the back end (if you are creating hybrid apps), or WebSphere Portal as the back end (if you are creating hybrid websites).

The choices, then, come down to developing a native application, a hybrid application, or a web application. But there are two questions that need to be answered that will influence your mobile channel technology decision:

• What devices will you need to support?
• What is your application going to do?

Deliver an exceptional mobile web experience using WebSphere Portal and IBM Worklight V6.0, Part 1: Integrating a hybrid mobile application with WebSphere Portal pages

IBM Business Monitor - Cluster Startup Order

Aide Memoire

Assuming that you're using the four cluster topology, the startup order is as follows: -

• Messaging
• Support
• AppTarget
• WebApp

The most crucial things are to: -

(a) Ensure that Messaging ( SI Bus / JMS ) is up before starting the AppTarget

(b) Ensure that Support, which hosts the Cognos BI application, is ALSO up before starting AppTarget

The reason for this is that the Monitor Models run on the AppTarget, and will "talk" back to the SI Bus(es) and also to Cognos.

BusinessSpace typically runs in the WebApp cluster, hence why it's the last to be started.

Nice :-)

Using the "Manage Profiles Interactive" tool to create new profiles in WebSphere Application Server

Problem(Abstract)

The Profile Management tool (PMT) GUI, used in creating new profiles, is not available for 64-bit systems. As a result, you must use the manageprofiles command-line tool shipped with WebSphere Application Server to create new profiles or augment existing ones. 

Cause

The manageprofiles.[sh|bat] script is very difficult to use and has many complex and confusing parameters.

The Manage Profiles Interactive tool uses your own systems environment to prompt you through the various required and optional parameters. After you are satisfied with your selections, the command is launched using the manageprofile.[sh|bat] creating the profile. This greatly increases the ease and speed in creating a new profile or augmenting an existing one.

Resolving the problem

The manageprofileInteractive.zip file (attached below) contains the executable manageprofilesInteractive.jar, and launch scripts run_manageprofileInteractive.bat and run_manageprofileInteractive.sh.

Using the "Manage Profiles Interactive" tool to create new profiles in WebSphere Application Server

Using escape characters to construct a response file for the WAS Manage Profiles command

One of my colleagues asked how he could construct a response file the WAS Manage Profiles command ( manageprofiles.sh ) in order to allow him to enter a Distinguished Name ( DN ) for a personal SSL certificate containing one or more space characters e.g. cn=IBM GB, ou=IBM, o=GB.

The relevant parameter is: -

personalCertDN

It took me a while to work it out, but the WAS Information Center was of great use: -

manageprofiles command

which says: -

…

When you specify a single value that contains a comma character, such as the distinguished names for the personalCertDN and signingCertDN parameters, use a double-backslash before the comma character. For example, here is how to specify the personalCertDN value with a distinguished name:

signingCertDN=cn=testserver.ibm.com\\,ou=Root Certificate\\,  ou=testCell\\,ou=testNode01\\,o=IBM\\,c=US 

…

Here's my version: -

create
profileName=foobar1
nodeName=foobar1
hostName=rhel6.uk.ibm.com
cellName=snafu1
profilePath=/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/foobar1
templatePath=/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profileTemplates/BPM/managed.procctr
federateLater=true
dbJDBCClasspath=/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/jdbcdrivers/DB2
dbType=DB2_DATASERVER
personalCertValidityPeriod=15
signingCertValidityPeriod=15
keyStorePassword=b0nf1re!
personalCertDN=cn=IBM GB\\, ou=IBM\\, o=GB
signingCertDN=cn=IBM GB\\, ou=IBM\\, o=GB

The Unix ( Linux in my case ) OS converts \\ to \ and the Java Virtual Machine ( manageprofiles uses Java under the covers ) uses the single \ character to "escape" the required space character.

Seemples …..

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