Whats the solution to expose a single Web Server URL to users regardless of which server is actually running the web application services.
How to address the above scenario ?
Version: BOXI 3.1 running on WIN2008 64BIT; IIS 7.5; TOMCAT 5.5
Thanks
antonykumar (BOB member since 2007-02-07)
My preferred approach is hardware load balancing of the web tier, but software based load balancing solutions exist as well. You’d want to check with your network folks to determine if that type of hardware is available in your environment.
V
Eric Vallo 
(BOB member since 2002-08-15)
We have one front-end web applicaiton server; two BOXI 3.1 servers; all are clustered.
If front-end web applicatoin server is down then enable web application server in the BO server.
To expose a single Web Server URL do i need to configure in IIS / TOMCAT ?
antonykumar (BOB member since 2007-02-07)
I know that software based clustering is available via Windows but I do not have any specific experience doing so. If unsure, I’d recommend consulting with your Windows admin group for help there.
V
Eric Vallo (BOB member since 2002-08-15)
Antony, sounds like the client is putting you between a rock and a hard place by not wanting to commit to having 2 web servers to leverage load balancing, yet they still want high availability while only leveraging 1 web server against 2 clustered servers.
Load balancing isn’t just for the benefit of splitting load, it’s also necessary to reach true “high availability” and reduce manual interaction in fail-over situations.
I think it would be worth advising them on adding an additional web server and using software load balancing if they don’t want to invest in additional hardware.
As far as your other question, technically speaking you can have their network engineer setup a DNS namespace that points to the web server. However, if that server goes down and you’re saying that you are also hosting a backup web tier on your 2 BO servers with your CMS & Processing tiers, you still have to:
However, you won’t be truly leveraging the benefits of clustering in this scenario and it is not best practice.
Jay Riddle (BOB member since 2008-12-03)