Load balancing to a stateless application

Question

          I have a question related to load balancing to a stateless server, in a WLS cluster,
          using hardware load balancing. The BEA documentation stipulates the use of cookies
          or URL rewriting to ensure stickiness to a session. We have a rich client and
          our server is completely stateless. There is no concept of stickiness, or >1
          invocation to a server session.
          So. . . we don’t need the session ID provided by the cookie that WLS wants to
          send back to the client. Is there any way to configure WLS cluster (7 or 8) to
          not return a cookie, so that our client “thinks” each call to the server is it’s
          “first” call? Am I missing an obvious approach?
          

Answer 1

          Hi Vic,
          My understanding is, if your servers are totally stateless, and if the requests
          from the same user are totally independent, for example, some read-only applications,
          cluster only adds overhead to you. In such case, your servers with the hardware
          load balancers should be enough to support the scalability and availability.
          Xiang
          "Vic Brown" <[email protected]> wrote:
          >
          >Thanks, Xiang.
          >
          >Good advice. I came to the same realization after a little more thought!
          >
          >
          >The cluster question has not been decided yet. We'll need a sizable
          >server farm
          >(30+ app servers) to support the app, and it's a large, complex application,
          >so
          >issues like scalability and HA are critical.
          >
          >Thanks, again.
          >
          >
          >
          >"Xiang Rao" <[email protected]> wrote:
          >>
          >>1. Just don't configure your load balancer to use Layer 7 switch by
          >cookie
          >>or URL.
          >>And configure Layer 3 to something like round robin or whatever you
          >like.
          >>
          >>2. If you don't need a session cookie, just don't generate it in your
          >>application.
          >>So don't call getSession(true) in servlets, and if use JSP, disable
          >session.
          >>
          >>
          >>3. Why use WL cluster?
          >>
          >>"Vic Brown" <[email protected]> wrote:
          >>>
          >>>I have a question related to load balancing to a stateless server,
          >in
          >>>a WLS cluster,
          >>>using hardware load balancing. The BEA documentation stipulates the
          >>>use of cookies
          >>>or URL rewriting to ensure stickiness to a session. We have a rich
          >>client
          >>>and
          >>>our server is completely stateless. There is no concept of stickiness,
          >>>or >1
          >>>invocation to a server session.
          >>>
          >>>So. . . we don’t need the session ID provided by the cookie that WLS
          >>>wants to
          >>>send back to the client. Is there any way to configure WLS cluster
          >>(7
          >>>or 8) to
          >>>not return a cookie, so that our client “thinks” each call to the server
          >>>is it’s
          >>>“first” call? Am I missing an obvious approach?
          >>>
          >>
          >