The following procedure outlines the typical steps for configuring a hardware load balancer for an enterprise deployment.

Note that the actual procedures for configuring a specific load balancer will differ, depending on the specific type of load balancer. There may also be some differences depending on the type of protocol that is being load balanced. For example, TCP virtual servers and HTTP virtual servers use different types of monitors for their pools. Refer to the vendor-supplied documentation for actual steps.

1. Create a pool of servers. This pool contains a list of servers and the ports that are included in the load-balancing definition.

   For load balancing between the web hosts, create a pool of servers that would direct requests to hosts WEBHOST1 and WEBHOST2 to each port used in the OHS. For example, a pool to WEBHOST1 and WEBHOST2 to port 4443 for access to applications like SOA and OSB, another pool to WEBHOST1 and WEBHOST2 to port 4444 for internal accesses, and another pool to WEBHOST1 and WEBHOST2 to port 4445 for access to admin consoles.

2. Create rules to determine whether a given host and service is available and assign it to the pool of servers that are described in Step 1.

3. Create the required virtual servers on the load balancer for the addresses and ports that receive requests for the applications.

   For a complete list of the virtual servers required for the enterprise deployment, see Summary of the Virtual Servers Required for an Enterprise Deployment.

   When you define each virtual server on the load balancer, consider the following:

   1. If your load balancer supports it, specify whether the virtual server is available internally, externally, or both. Ensure that the internal addresses are only resolvable from inside the network.

   2. Assign the pool of servers created in Step 1 to the virtual server.

   3. Configure SSL for the virtual server.

   4. Configure SSL for the communication with the pool of servers.

      Some load balancers may need to be provided with the backend's certificate (the SSL certificate used by the OHS listeners in the backend pool) to establish the appropriate SSL communication. In that case you may need to add the OHS's CA certificate to the load balancer as a trusted certificate. Since this guide uses example certificates based on the WebLogic per-domain CA, you can add this after the domain is created.

This topic provides details of the virtual servers that are required for an enterprise deployment.

The following table provides a list of the virtual servers that you must define on the hardware load balancer for the Oracle SOA Suite enterprise topology:

This section provides additional instructions that are required for the virtual server-admin.example.com.

When you configure this virtual server on the hardware load balancer:

• Enable address and port translation.

• Enable reset of connections when services or hosts are down.

When you configure this virtual server on the hardware load balancer:

• Use port 443. If port 80 is used for customer usability, then it is recommended to redirect any requests to it (non-SSL protocol) to port 443 (SSL protocol). Refer to your load balancer’s specific documentation to implement this redirection.

• Specify ANY as the protocol (non-HTTP protocols are required for B2B).

• Enable address and port translation.

• Enable reset of connections when services and nodes are down.

• Create rules to filter out access to /management and /em on this virtual server.

  These context strings direct requests to the Oracle WebLogic Remote Console and to the Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control and must be used only when you access the system from admin.example.com.

When you configure this virtual server on the hardware load balancer:

• Enable address and port translation.

• Enable reset of connections when services or nodes are down.

• As with the soa.example.com, create rules to filter out access to /console and /em on this virtual server.

When you configure this virtual server on the hardware load balancer:

• Use port 443. If port 80 is used for customer usability, then it is recommended to redirect any requests to it (non-SSL protocol) to port 443 (SSL protocol). Refer to your load balancer’s specific documentation to implement this redirection.

• Enable address and port translation.

• Enable reset of connections when services and nodes are down.

• Create rules to filter out access to /management and /em on this virtual server.

  These context strings direct requests to the Oracle WebLogic Remote Console and to the Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control and should be used only when you access the system from admin.example.com.

The Managed File Transfer requires a TCP virtual server in the load balancer for the Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), in addition to the virtual server for HTTPS.

In the Managed File Transfer scenario, the load balancer directly routes the SFTP requests to the SFTP embedded servers. These SFTP embedded servers are running on the Managed File Transfer Managed Servers. For consistency, the port used in the hardware load balancer and in the SFTP servers is 7022. The Oracle HTTP Servers are not used for the SFTP requests because they cannot manage the SFTP protocol.

The Managed File Transfer also uses a HTTPS virtual server to access the MFT console. In this virtual server, the load balancer routes the HTTPS requests to the Oracle HTTP Servers.