How to access Weblogic cluster

[Paul Meyer]

Hi,
I've tried to set up a cluster which consists of 2 managed weblogic servers(wls 6.1), the whole process is ok. But at the end I'm puzzled because I don't know how to access web applications on the cluster.
Am I missing something?
Thanks

[Paul Meyer]

Is there an URL for a cluster of weblogic servers?

[Marcos Maia]

You have to use a load balancer in front of the clustered servers or configure a proxy plugin for the cluster.
A proxy plug-in is a WebLogic Server extension to an HTTP server�such as Apache, Netscape Enterprise Server, or Microsoft Internet Information Server�that accesses clustered servlets provided by a WebLogic Server cluster. The proxy plug-in contains the load balancing logic for accessing servlets and JSPs in a WebLogic Server cluster. Proxy plug-ins also contain the logic for accessing the replica of a client's session state if the primary WebLogic Server hosting the session state fails.
You can also use weblogic as a proxy, and the proxy is the one who receives the request.
Take a look at:
http://edocs.bea.com/wls/docs81/cluster/planning.html#1118661
regards.

[Paul Meyer]

Hi Marcos,

Thanks very much for your useful reply.
I tried to use weblogic.servlet.proxy.HttpClusterServlet and it worked.
However, I'm still quite puzzled by a couple of things.
1. In my cluster, the Default Load Algorithm is round-robin. But All requests are received by one server in the cluster, the other server is idle. These requests come from different IPs. I guess that is not what round-robin means.
2. after having updated my web application, the changes can be seen when I use the managing server. But in cluster, which consists of 2 managed servers, my web application is still the old one. Restarting servers does not help at all.
any suggestion?
Thanks a lot

[Marcos Maia]

Originally posted by Paul Meyer:

1. In my cluster, the Default Load Algorithm is round-robin. But All requests are received by one server in the cluster, the other server is idle. These requests come from different IPs. I guess that is not what round-robin means.

You're right, you are having a strange behavior, that's not the way the round robin should work, it shoult send one request to each server in the cluster(if the requesta are from the same client it'll redirect to the same server wich answered first). My bet is that there's something still missing on your configuration of the proxy. (You have to register the servers who are participating in the cluster on the web.xml file)

2. after having updated my web application, the changes can be seen when I use the managing server. But in cluster, which consists of 2 managed servers, my web application is still the old one. Restarting servers does not help at all.
any suggestion?
Thanks a lot

Did u redeploy u'r application for the cluster??? You should not deploy it directly to the servers. Are u'r servers under development mode or production mode, because you have dif. ways to update applications under each one mode.
check that and give notice about....ok...
cheerrss.

[Paul Meyer]

I gave up weblogic.servlet.proxy.HttpClusterServlet and used proxy plug-in for apache. Consequently I got a little better result. All servers were participating in processing requests. Still it was not in a round-robin fashion, despite that the cluster was configured in round-robin way.
Another problem also joined in to torture me further . I just can't get the replication in memory of http session work. I have put [I<session-param>
<param-name> PersistentStoreType </param-name>
<param-value> replicated </param-value>
</session-param> [/I]
in weblogic.xml. What else should I do to achieve this?

[ March 11, 2004: Message edited by: Paul Meyer ]