Testing Forms Services availability with Hardware Load Balancer
I have posted a question about load balancing to a group of application services running Forms Services here on the Forms forum but have had no reply:
Forms Services availability checking for BIGIP Load Balancer
My basic questions are:
a) What do people recommend for load balancing Forms ... least connection, round robin ... ?
b) Do people use http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status or have some of you used something else?
My reason for the question is we had a Forms Services failure that was not detected by the ifcmd servlet as the HTTP side of things was still working. This meant that the BIGIP load balancer sent everything to the failed server as it had the least connections. So basically no-one could logon.
I've raised an SR with Oracle but they recommend the standard URL above. Has anyone else had a problem like this and if so were you able to fix it?
Regards,
Philippe
Well SR followed up and it looks like the only course of action is to use the standard HTTP check: http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status ...
... unless that is you want to do some serious customisation. Oracle don't support any other form of checking.
I'm guessing from the lack of responses to this thread that this hasn't been an issue for anybody else ... ???
Any thoughts/suggestions really welcome as we go into production in 4 weeks.
a) What do people recommend for load balancing Forms ... least connection, round robin ... ?
b) Do people use http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status or have some of you used something else?
Thanks,
Philippe
Similar Messages
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Forms Services availability checking for BIGIP Load Balancer
We are load balancing across a number of 10.1.2.2 Forms servers using a BIGIP load balancer. Currently our load balancing is done based on which server has the "least connections" to the BIGIP. So far we have been using the following test URL to allow BIGIP to check the availability of the Forms Services on each server.
http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status
This works well however it only checks through to the HTTP level within Forms Services. We encountered a problem when the Forms Services failed to work on a particular server however the above URL showed that everything was OK. The effect of this was that all new users attempting to login were directed to the failed server as this server had the "least number of connections".
After raising an SR with Oracle they advised that the forking of runtime processes had probably failed and this was not detectable by the load balancer with the above URL. So they have recommended a number of options for checking the status of the Forms Services. These are:
a) http://server:port/forms/frmservlet
This loads the default Form and therefore by definition tests the forking of runtime processes. However BIGIP is unable to automatically process the information to distinguish whether the service is up or down. Oracle recommended that if using this method we would need to customise BIGIP to handle the various FRM-xxxx error codes.
b) http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?userid=scott/tiger@YOURDB&form=yourtestform.
fmx
Even more thorough would be to actual log on to the database using a test form as above.
My question is does anyone out there have experience in checking Forms Services availability using these last two methods as I'm not sure how to customize the load balancer so that it can handle the output of these URLs. Also when using the original URL is it normal to load balance using a "least connections" method or do people out there use a different algorithm.
Thanks for any help/advise that you can give.
Regards,
PhilippeWell SR followed up and it looks like the only course of action is to use the standard HTTP check: http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status ...
... unless that is you want to do some serious customisation. Oracle don't support any other form of checking.
I'm guessing from the lack of responses to this thread that this hasn't been an issue for anybody else ... ???
Any thoughts/suggestions really welcome as we go into production in 4 weeks.
a) What do people recommend for load balancing Forms ... least connection, round robin ... ?
b) Do people use http://server:port/forms/frmservlet?ifcmd=status or have some of you used something else?
Thanks,
Philippe -
Lync Server Front End 2 Hardware Load Balancer IP
I currently have the following Setup.
I only have 1 Hardware Load Balanced IP for my Front End Pool.
After running the Lync Planning Tool it actually states that i need 2 Hardware Load Balanced IP, 1 for internal and 1 for external.
My question would be would i be able to configure for mobility and external access with just using 1 Hardware Load Balanced IP?
Because i seem to have problem with connecting to the front end server based on the following scenario.
Without Reverse Proxy Mapping (port 80/443 internet to port 80/443 reverse proxy to port 80/443 lyncpool frontend)
Internal Access (No Issue)
Lync Mobile 2013 App (Can Connect and chat but intermittent connection) *gets disconnected if i access video/audio
Lync Client 2013 Externally (Cannot Connect to Server)
https://meet.domain.com (working)
With Reverse Proxy Mapping (Port 80/443 internet to port 8080/4443 reverse proxy to port 8080/4443 lyncpool frontend)
Internal Access (No Issue)
Lync Mobile 2013 App (Cannot connect)
Lync Client 2013 Externally (Cannot connect)
https://meet.domain.com (Not working)
Would i actually need to have a additional front end pool IP for external access? or can i maintain it as it is?
I do not understand why without the mapping it can work whereas if i do the mapping according to technet article it won't work.
Everything is running windows server 2012 R2 and Lync 2013, Loadbalancer / Reverse Proxy is the same F5 Appliance
Any assistance on this is greatly appreciated.Hi Greg,
I have been making use of it (https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/) to test my autodiscover and remote
access.
Like i mentioned it is weird that without doing port mapping from 80/443 to 8080/4443 i was able to pass
the autodiscovery and all but once i changed to the proper steps to do port mapping it stopped working.
and im not using TMG but using a F5 Hardware Reverse Proxy which also happen to be my Load Balancing Appliance.
Is there anyone who can help give me more details if i need 2 VIP for the front end ? -
Defining SERVER_NAME to use RUN_REPORT_OBJECT on a hardware load balancer
Hi everybody,
We are deploying a Forms application on OAS (actually Forms & Reports Services - FRS) 10.1.2.0.2 using a hardware load balancer, that distributes workload between two FRS instances on separate computers.
Forms work without a hitch, but it is executing reports that's not working.
The problem is that when using RUN_REPORT_OBJECT you have to supply the REPORT_SERVER parameter, and each computer has a different report server name, but you don't know in advance wich FRS instance you are going to connect to, because the URL is that of the load balancer.
We thought that omitting the report server name from the report_object would do the trick but then we get an "FRM-41211 integration error" message
What would be the right o recomended way to solve this problem?
Thanks in advance,
Miguel.What would be the right o recomended way to solve this problem?I don't know what would be the right or recomended way, I can say how we solved the problem in our Forms/Reports applications.
We have a lookup table where each machine has some parameters configured, one of which is the reports server name. The first form in each application identifies the machine where it's running, and reads corresponding rows in that table. -
Doubt on Hardware Load Balancing?
Hi Community,
I think there are two ways to perform the load balancing.One of them is proxy and other one is hardware load balancing.I have know something about the Proxy related Load balancing using Apache,oracle HTTP server and others.My question,I don't know about the single bit of Hardware load balancing,i refer the some sites but it is not benefits for me.So please guide me to configure the hardware load balancing for my cluster..
Regards,
Ove..Hi,
Find the document for configuring the hardware load balancer with Weblogic
1.F5 load balancer
https://www.f5.com/pdf/deployment-guides/bea-bigip45-dg.pdf
2.Cicso
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Data_Center/App_Networking/weblogicdg.html
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/ns340/ns517/ns431/ns432/net_design_guidance09186a0080908169.pdf
Additional Info
http://pauldone.blogspot.in/2013/04/load-balancing-t3-initial-context.html
Best Load Balancing Hardware | TechSource
Oracle Weblogic Server Administration: Load Balancing in Weblogic Server
http://www.broadband-testing.co.uk/download/ZeusBEAWebLogic.pdf
http://www.ateam-oracle.com/using-weblogic-as-a-load-balancer/
Hope it helps -
Coyotepoint E350 and OracleAs 10g Hardware Load Balancing SSL
Hi:
Has anyone been successful using a CoyotePoint E350 with XCEL SSL accelerator card and OracleAS 10g with SSL to hardware load balance an HTTPS site?You're on the right track adding the SSL certificate to the Load Balancer. I'm not really sure what you mean 'without the use of Webcache'? However, if I had the choise, I'd always add the certificate to the Load Balancer.
A good document setting up a load balanced environment is the Enterprise Deployment Guide. Chapter 8 describes the tasks for a Forms environment.
Regards,
Martin -
Hardware Load Balancing Tuxedo
In a PeopleSoft scenario, can i use a hardware load balancer to scale out multiple PeopleSoft app servers on the JOLT port?
In theory, i think i should be able to , but for some reason it does not work.
Thanks
AlokHi Alok,
At the moment, we don't certify load balancers with Tuxedo, although I'm not sure why you are encountering errors using a hardware load balancer. I know other customers are using them successfully. Which load balancer are you using and how do you have it configured?
Regards,
Todd Little
Oracle Tuxedo Chief Architect -
Hi,
I have 2 Oracle 9i Database Servers running on Sun systems which are physically located in 2 different locations connected by a leased line.
We would like to load balance these Servers which are physically located far using a Hardware Load Balancing device, ServerIronXL from Foundry Networks using IP.
I would like to know if there would be any issues from the Oracle Application while doing so?
I would also want to know if U want to suggest any other Hardware other than ServerIron to do this load balancing?
Best Regards,
SriniHi,
The SUN1 goes down because his source goes down.
Instead of the Source that is sending data do SUN1, a small unit is coming up and replacing the Source for 4 hours, but it feeds the SUN2 with data. That will be later on send to again SUN1, so to avoid duplication of data (sun2 is receiving data from sun1 all the time) , SUN2 is just holding the data until the Source comes up and starts feeding the SUN1. the data that was on sun2 will be deleted as soon the Source comes up.
While the Sun1 is down the Sun2 must feed information to the Web site.
It is just to split traffic during a certain period of time (4 hours, while the maintenance is happening), the rest of the 24 hours the sun2 is a Backup location, and it must contain the exact live copy of SUN1, and be ready to jump into production if something goes down on SUN1.
Regards,
Srini -
Hardware Load Balancing Configuration and Session Clustering
I would like to know where I can find any information on Hardware Load Balancing
Configuration in order to leverage WLS HTTPSession clustering.
Don Ferguson mentioned white papers on this subject however I can't seem to locate
them.
I am particularly interested in Cisco's 11000 Content Service Switch.
Thanks.
Mike Jones
Scroll to the bottom of this link. It discusses how to configure Alteon and Big-IP.
The principles should apply to Cisco as well, but we don't have documentation on
configuring it, as far as I know.
http://e-docs.bea.com/wls/docs61/cluster/index.html
-Don
Michael Jones wrote:
> I would like to know where I can find any information on Hardware Load Balancing
> Configuration in order to leverage WLS HTTPSession clustering.
> Don Ferguson mentioned white papers on this subject however I can't seem to locate
> them.
> I am particularly interested in Cisco's 11000 Content Service Switch.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Mike Jones
-
General Hardware Load Balancer question
We are considering setting up a hardware load balancing configuration for Oracle Appliaction Server. I was wondering if anyone has any helpful infroamation about this, i.e. hardware vendor, ease of setup and configuration or any other helpful hints.
As long as they fill your minimum requirements, they are kind of equally good. In my private opinion BIG IP is the best one could get, and I have had least issues with that Load Balancer. It's also very flexible and you can do all possible configurations with it.
However, as I said as long as any Load Balancer fulfills your requirements (balance request, sticky/persistence, SSL termination?) they should be as good as well.
Regards,
Martin -
Hi,
EBS Release-12.1.3 ,
Apps -2 nodes HA,
Hardware load balancer-F5 in DMZ(Single Entry point for load balancing)
We have chosen HTTP Layer Hardware Load Balancing for persistentant session config
please advice that what kind of changes we need to do at the application level in order to implement Hardware load balancer like,
Can we configure EBS application to run on 443 port ,so as to directly redirect appln url from hardware load balancer to 443 port of EBS application node.
without reverse proxy configuration.
If reverse proxy in DMZ is required then how hardware load balancing will be configure for http layer balancing between nodes.
As we have iSupplier in internet connectivity,please suggest which kind of implementation we can go for.
Thanks
Edited by: user10702579 on 21 Sep, 2012 3:46 AMNot necessarily - it depends on how F5 is configured. As stated, one of the settings on the F5 allows traffic from the client to be addressed to the virtual URL on the F5 using port 443 (https), and the F5 can then direct traffic to the real application servers on the port on which EBS is configured. The return traffic from the application server back to the F5 uses the same EBS port, and when the F5 send the traffic back to the client it can use 443 - so as far as the client is concerned, it looks like the entire application is SSL enabled (using 443).
If this setting is not configured in the F5, then EBS will have to be reconfigured to use 443 throughout.
HTH
Srini -
Bug with Network Load Balancing Services and SkipAsSource always reverting to true
Steps to reproduce:
Add an IP address to the cluster (2 nodes running Windows Server 2012) using the Network Load Balancing Manager
Using PowerShell set the SkipAsSource flag on the IP Address to true (Set-NetIpAddress -IpAddress 192.168.1.10 -SkipAsSource $true). The flag is correctly set.
Try to reverse the setting (Set-NetIpAddress -IpAddress 192.168.1.10 -SkipAsSource $false). Flag stays as true.
It appears as though Network Load Balancing Services is remembering the setting from someone.
Things I've tried all without success (in no particular order):
Removing the IP address from the cluster and adding it back in
Using PowerShell to remove the IP address and add it back in manually (on each host).Flag stays set as true on the 1st node but takes a second before it reverts back to true on the 2nd node.
Using netsh to remove the IP address and add it back in manually (on each host). Flag stays set as true on the 1st node but takes a second before it reverts back to true on the 2nd node.
Deleting each host from the cluster (one at a time), removing the registry keys CurrentControlSet\Services\WLBS and
Removing both hosts from the cluster
Restarting the hosts
Using processmon (sysinternals) to try and find a registry entry that might be set when SkipAsSource is set
Does anyone know:
How to resolve this issue? I'm guessing resetting the TCP/IP stack would work but that's a last resort as it requires an on sight visit to the datacentre.
Where the SkipAsSource flag it stored?
How to reset the master/global cluster config?
Thank in advance,
AntonyHi Antony,
I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue.
There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience.
Best Regards.
Steven Lee
TechNet Community Support -
Any suggestions on how to load test a Forms Services (9.0.4) system to see how well an application scales? I was wondering if there is an approach I can use to load-testing the applets that doesn't require purchasing a full-blown Loadrunner license...
Hi Steven,
You should try NeoLoad to load-test Oracle Forms apps.
NeoLoad is a load-testing software for Web apps provided by the Neotys company.
NeoLoad decodes the Forms communication between the client and the server. It shows instead a nice XML page where all parameters can be read and modified.
Afterwards, while the load-test is being played, the information is sent back to the server in the Oracle Forms format.
As for the load itself, no worries, NeoLoad handles thousands of simultaneous virtual users.
You can give try, a free trial version is avalaible on the Neotys website: http://www.neotys.com/product/download-neoload.html.
You'll find useful information on the website to start the evaluation.
Here is the page related to the Oracle Forms technology: http://www.neotys.com/product/technologies-oracle-forms-load-testing.html.
And here is a flash demo that shows in detail how NeoLoad works against an Oracle Forms app.
Take also some time to read this testimonial from "American TV": http://www.neotys.com/references/success/load-testing-americantv.html. It tells how NeoLoad helped them to carry out a great load testing campaign.
Really hope it helps you testing your Oracle Forms app.
Olivier. -
Hardware load balancing with session stickiness
Hello,
We are looking for a hardware based solution to load balance 4
unclustered weblogic servers. These servers are software replicas of
each other and share a common database. We need a solution that
provides session level server stickiness based on jsessionid as both a
cookie and url rewrite. Currently we have Cisco load balancers which
do not handle the url rewrite due to the fact the the load balancer
only "sees" what is after the question mark in the url and the
jsessionid is before the question mark. Example:
http://somehost.com/some/url.jsp;jsessionid=26D5C566075663ABD8E17AD255974323?parm=value
I'm sure we are not the only ones trying to do this. Any suggestions
would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Alan George
Having worked on Cisco load balancer and WLS clustered, you would loose sessions
when the requests are failed over.
S
"Shawn Kircher" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>Has anyone got this type of scenario working where you load balance sticky
>sessions
>from a Cisco load balancer between non-clustered weblogic servers?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Shawn
>
>"Aravind Krishnasamy" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>F5 or BigIp provides hardware level load balancing and it injects date
>>inside weblogic cookie and maintains server affinity.
>>Thanks
>>Aravind
>>"ageorge" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>news:[email protected]...
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> We are looking for a hardware based solution to load balance 4
>>> unclustered weblogic servers. These servers are software replicas
>>of
>>> each other and share a common database. We need a solution that
>>> provides session level server stickiness based on jsessionid as both
>>a
>>> cookie and url rewrite. Currently we have Cisco load balancers which
>>> do not handle the url rewrite due to the fact the the load balancer
>>> only "sees" what is after the question mark in the url and the
>>> jsessionid is before the question mark. Example:
>>>
>>>
>>http://somehost.com/some/url.jsp;jsessionid=26D5C566075663ABD8E17AD255974323
>>?parm=value
>>>
>>> I'm sure we are not the only ones trying to do this. Any suggestions
>>> would be greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Alan George
>>
>>
>
-
HTTP Redirect with Global Load Balancing
I've seen a lot of documentation about redirects and what I am trying to do seems simple enough yet I can't get it to work. Here is a summary:
We have two CSSs in different data centers with load balancing in a roundrobin fashion.
User types www.test.com:9086/test.html
User hits one of the CSSes configured to respond to www.test.com, CSS1 and CSS2.
If CSS1 gets the request, it should redirect request to server1:9086/test.html
If CSS2 gets the request, it should redirect request to server2:9086/test.html
Here is a sample of one of the CSSes:
content vTEST
dnsbalance roundrobin
add dns www.test.com
url "/*"
protocol tcp
port 9086
vip address 192.168.3.135
add service rTEST
active
service rTEST
protocol tcp
port 9086
type redirect
keepalive type none
ip address 2.2.2.2
redirect-string "server1:9086/test.html"
active
I've seen a lot of example of using HTTP Redirects, but none of them touch on using global load balancing as we are trying to accomplish.
Now, if I type in a browser:
http://www.test.com:9086/test.html
it fails. Why? because the CSS returns back an IP of 2.2.2.2 for www.test.com, which isn't a real IP address (this is by design). If I type:
http://192.168.3.135:9086/test.html
it works because it successfully redirects to:
http://server1:9086/test.html
because it is going directly against the VIP and redirecting as it should.
So the redirect function we know is working on the CSS as expected. However, the problem is this:
When I ping www.test.com I should get back the VIP address of the content rule (192.168.3.135) and I do UNTIL I ADD THE REDIRECT TYPE to the service. Once I do that if I ping www.test.com I will get back 2.2.2.2. Somehow once the redirect is added the IP address of the service (2.2.2.2) is returned instead of the content VIP (192.168.3.135). That shouldn't happen.
I hope this makes sense and any help would be greatly appreciated!!!I think what you want to do is explained at :
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/contnetw/ps789/products_configuration_example09186a0080094068.shtml
For your information, you should also look at this solution :
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/contnetw/ps789/products_configuration_example09186a00801dcd75.shtml
Regards,
Gilles.
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