Configure Load Balancer in Oracle Apps 11i , E-Business Suite

What is Load Balancer in Oracle Applications 11i ?
As name suggest its used to balance load on oracle applications, so lets say you initially sized (How to size server configuration in your apps 11i Instance during Implementation coming soon..) your server for 100 concurrent users & now additional 90 users started using your system , you can configure one more Application Tier node & distribute load of 190 users across two application tier node by configuring load balancer (Currently I am discussing only about Application Tier & once you are comfortable with Middle Tier I’ll discuss on database tier)
Why I need load balancer in Apps 11 ?
Is Increased load only reason for introducing load balancer in Apps 11i , No not at all . There are other reasons as well like (These are more advanced reasons & if you don’t understand don’t worry read it for understanding purpose at this minute)
– You want to Hide Server Name so instead of users accessing it via http://hostname:port you want users to access by http://somefancyname.com use load balancer (I know you can do this by various other ways as well like reverse proxy, via dns ..)
– You want on some node only web server & some both form server & web server

and there can lot of other reason why you need load balancer (May be you want to put it in your CV that you know how to configure load balancer, I know this is stupid reason 🙂 )

What is Role of Load balancer in Oracle Application 11i ?
Usually load balancer act as mediator in passing your request to respective Middle Tiers (Usually web server ), so lets say you have configured load balancer in front of two middle tier which are part of your Applications 11i lets call them MT1 & MT2 . Load balancer will accept client’s request and pass on to MT1 & MT2 ( round robin or the way you have configured load balancer, you here is Unix Administrators)

What are different kind of load balancer ?
Session Persistent – These kind of load balancers assign request from a client to same Application Tier. so lets say user1 tried connecting applications via load balancer and LB sent that request to MT1 then in future LB will send requests from user1 always to MT1 for time being specified in session persistence duration parameter specified in LB configuration or till user logs out from Applications. This property is called as Stickness or sticky Bit

Non Session Persistent – These kind assign request to MT in round robin way so lets assume user1 requested for login page , LB sends this request to MT1 then user1 again clicked on user responsibility and this time LB sent request from user1 to second middle tier i.e. MT2

Other types of LB, I am not discussing here as these are not required at this minute

What all different kind of load balancing options available in Oracle 11i ?
DNS Level Load Balancing ( Check image at top , this represent DNS level LB)
HTTP Layer Load balancing (You need hardware load balancer which accepts http requests)
Jserv Load balancing (This is example of software load balancer, via mod_oprocmgr Process Manager Module)
Forms level load balancing – Jserv load balancing via forms servlets (More coming in future) , forms metrics server adfmsctl.sh

How to configure Load Balancer in Oracle Apps 11i ?
Coming in Next post…

Things which need Extra Attention while Configuring Load Balancer in front of Oracle Apps Web Server
Coming in Next post…

How to confirm if load balancer is sending requests to all nodes which are configured for load balancer ?
Coming in Next post…

Where to find documents to configure Load Balancer ?
Coming in Next post…

About the Author Atul Kumar

Oracle ACE, Author, Speaker and Founder of K21 Technologies & K21 Academy : Specialising in Design, Implement, and Trainings.

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16 comments

Anonymous says September 8, 2006

Thanks Atul. Waiting for more information on Load Balancer.

Thanks
Nagarajan

SARADHI says October 8, 2006

It’s very good infomation about Load Balancer,

How to configure the Load Balancer ?

Thanks & Regards
Saradhi

SARADHI says October 8, 2006

Hi Atul,

It’s very good Information

Waiting for the configuring the Load Balancer procedure.

Thanks
K.Saradhi

Atul Kumar says October 8, 2006

Saradhi,
Configuring load balancer are in next post i.e. at

Click Here

Anonymous says October 16, 2006

Bravo Atul your blog makes satyamites proud

Thanks

Farhan

Anonymous says October 20, 2006

Hi Atul,

Can you please provide detail step or a pointer on how to configure a 2 node application tier using load balancer?

Thanks
Nagarajan

Atul Kumar says October 20, 2006

Naga,
Have you checked second post

http://becomeappsdba.blogspot.com/2006/09/configure-hardware-load-balancer-at.html

when you run rapid clone clone it will ask if you have load balancer select yes & enter name of load balancer URL , Clone will take care of this , Do let me know if this is enough else I will put in step by step doc

Atul

Jayraj says October 24, 2006

How to check CPU(Security Patch)level and ATG Patch level in apps 11i?

Thanks
Jayraj

Atul Kumar says October 24, 2006

Jayraj,
For ATG you can use patchsets.sh listed in below link

http://teachmeoracle.com/patch02.html

For CPU patches you can query opatch -lsinventory if its database cpu patch .

You can now raise such doubts/questions in forum at http://teachmeoracle.com/forum

Atul

Krishna Kalluri says December 7, 2006

Hi Atul

you are really doing great job here. Keep it up.

I need your advice on my server upgrade. Is it better to be on single node installation for 60 concurrent users? we are on Sun Fire V490 ( 2 cpu , 8GB memory)
Is it OK to go

Atul Kumar says December 8, 2006

Krishna,
In my opinion one node should be fine but if you are using too many self service applications , you might look for increasing memory …

Atul

murali says December 16, 2006

Hi Atul,

Great work !!!!

Waiting for load balancing procedure.

Thanks
Muralidhar Muddada

Atul Kumar says December 17, 2006

Hi Murali,
Thanks a lot, I’ll try to put it in a day or two definately before 25-Dec

Atul Kumar
18-Dec-06

gabora says April 3, 2007

Hello Atul,
realy you had good work.
thank you

AGaber

Venkat k.v says August 17, 2008

Atul,

I am having issues configuring 10gAS nodes with LB(Cisco ACE).

Oracle docs says to ensure all LB configuration is done and both physcal nodes intract with LB.This is in place.

But while Installing Infra using LB (not Cold failover),I am having issues with 2nd tier confiuguration).

I am not sure,while installing 10gAS in LB,are we suppose to disable 2nd node and have LB and 1st node running for installing and vice versa.

Please advice.

Thanks in advance.

-Venkat

Atul says August 17, 2008

Venkat,
Explain your architecture in detail tounderstand your issue..

What problem you are facing ?

Which component of Infra tier (OID, SSO, Metadata Repository, DIP, DAS) is in HA ?

Are you planning to use RAC ?

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